Poster paint technique Ready-made poster paints usually come in small pots, in the form of a buttery paste that

somehow resemble oil paints until they are transferred (usually by using a palette knife) into the mixing plate and its water content dried off . This paint is a kind of watercolor with added chalk filler, which produces a hard and chalky appearance when dried on a matte ground. Poster paints are more commonly rendered opaquely but it can also produce a more transparent wash. The transparent form of poster paint can be obtained by diluting the paint, and is easier achieved when using the solid cake form as the color film that can be derived from this is relatively thin. However, it is not their distinctive effect to be used thinly and resemble water color. If the paint is made too watery, it loses its particular value as an opaque medium. Hence it is better to use the transparent form of poster color only for preliminary sketches. Compared to oil paints, it is easier to over paint with poster colors. Over painting is better when done quickly otherwise the under paint softens and mixes with the paint on top. Poster colors also produce a much lighter color when dried off unlike oil paints. Poster colors are mainly used by beginners and in commercial endeavors, because of its distinctive characteristics that makes it easy to handle, cheap and resemblance to oil (without the usual problems of oil painting). Although named as poster color, this kind of paint can still produce non-posterish paintings and can be used to make illustrations that are not just for posters and childrens play.