Level 3 Art, Craft and Design Edexcel

Drawing and painting techniques

Drawing Techniques

• Sketching: This is the most basic technique, using pencil or charcoal to quickly capture an idea or a scene. Mastering the art of gesture and contour sketching is crucial to bringing your composition to life.
• Hatching and Cross-Hatching: Creating a sense of depth and texture through use of closely spaced parallel lines and intersecting lines respectively.
• Blending: Used to create smooth gradations or transitions between tones.
• Stippling or Pointillism: Deploying small dots to create an image and can be effective in adding texture or depth to a piece of artwork.

Painting Techniques

• Impasto: This involves applying paint thickly so it stands out from the surface, to create emphasis or texture within your artwork.
• Glazing: Involves applying a thin, transparent layer of paint over a dried, previously painted area to alter its appearance or to add depth.
• Scumbling: Technique where a layer of broken, speckled, or scratchy colour is added over another colour so bits of the lower layer(s) of paint show through, often achieved by applying paint in a manner that the brush or palette knife doesn't meet the surface entirely, relying on drybrush technique.
• Grading: Involves smoothly blending paint colours together, usually between light and dark tones, to create a transition or gradient.
• Sgraffito: This is where the artist scratches through a top layer of paint to reveal a different colour beneath.

Observational Drawing and Painting Pieces

• Understanding how to analyse a subject, focusing on proportions, scale and composition.
• Top-down Lighting and perspective drawing: This involves demonstrating an understanding of light and shadow.
• Use of Colour: Understand warm and cool colours, complementing colours, and how to mix and blend effectively.
• Depth and Perspective: Utilise linear and atmospheric perspective.

Expressive Techniques

• Mark Making: Understand the expressive potential of different types of drawing and brushwork.
• Colour Theory: Understanding the emotive properties of different colours.
• Experimenting with mixed media: Mixing different mediums like watercolour, acrylic, oil pastel, and digital methods can result in a striking and unique piece.
• Abstraction: This involves moving away from realistic representation towards expression, symbolism, or conceptual ideas.

Remember that practising these techniques regularly is key to improving your skills and ensuring that you are comfortable with different methods. It's also crucial to study the works of other artists, both contemporary and historical, as this can provide inspiration and influence your own style and use of techniques.