Oil painting - materials & techniques
Oil paint is a combination of a pigment and an oil binding medium. It dries slowly in comparison to other paints, allowing the artist to manipulate the paint.
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Oil painting - materials & techniques: underdrawing
It is common for artists to draw their design, sometimes in considerable detail, directly onto the primed canvas or panel. Comparison of underdrawings with the finished ima…
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Oil painting - materials & techniques: The Shipwreck of Don Juan
The shipwreck scene is a sketch for the Shipwreck of Don Juan in the Musée de Louvre, Paris. Art Historians believe that the Victoria and Albert Museum sketch was painted b…
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X-radiography of paintings
Technical examination of paintings can provide information about materials and techniques used by artists. X-radiography is one technique which can reveal useful informatio…
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Painting in Japan
The chance to spend time in Japan learning about the techniques and materials of traditional Japanese painting came in my second year of research.
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Chinese painting & calligraphy reading list
Recommended reading about Chinese painting & calligraphy
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'My Picture Is A Sum Of Destructions', Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
A project to study the influence that synthetic painting materials had on the technique of Pablo Picasso is underway at the Tate Gallery. This is the subject of my MPhil re…
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An Indian painting workshop led by Shammi Bannu
Shammi Bannu is a renowned master artist in India with a very long family tradition of miniature painting which stretches back several hundred years. He was invited t…
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The reconstruction of the materials and techniques of Nicholas Hilliard’s portrait miniatures
Hilliard is quite secretive about the painting of his 'artificial' rubies. Examination of the objects and reading of other treatises only partially reveal the technique.…
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Watercolour painting: materials & techniques
Watercolour paint is a combination of a pigment and a water-soluble binder, usually gum arabic. The pigments may be natural or man-made.
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A gift in your will
You may not have thought of including a gift to a museum in your will, but the V&A is a charity and legacies form an important source of funding for our work. It is not just the great collectors and the wealthy who leave legacies to the V&A. Legacies of all sizes, large and small, make a real difference to what we can do and your support can help ensure that future generations enjoy the V&A as much as you have.
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The Painted World: From Illumination to Abstraction (Paperback)
The Painted World takes the outstanding collections of the V&A as the starting point for an all-inclusive survey of painting from the Middle Ages …
Buy nowEvent - Treasures of the Royal Courts: The Art of Icon Painting
Fri 14 June 2013 10:30
3 DAY PRACTICAL WORKSHOP: Discover the skills needed to create a sacred work of art in the Russo-Byzantine style.
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