 A painting is an image created using pigments/colour

on a paper or canvas. The pigment may be in a wet

form, such as paint, or a dry form, such as pastels.
 Painting can also be used as a verb. It is the action of
creating such an artwork.

 A mixed media painting is one which combines
different painting and drawing materials and
techniques, instead of just one. Any materials can be
used, including collage items such as pages from
magazines, newspaper, photographs, fabric, soil, or
packaging. Or a mixed media piece can be as 'simple'
as using two mediums, such as acrylic paints with
pastel on top.

Prehistoric Painting
Cave dwellers were the earliest artists. Coloured drawings of animals
and hunt that took place, dating back millennia have been found on the
walls of caves in Europe. Due to the fact that the caves were sealed up
for many centuries these drawings are well preserved. Early people
drew the wild animals that they saw all around them. Very rudimentary
human figures, drawn in lifelike positions, have been found in places
like Africa and Spain.
Egyptian methods of painting remained unchanged for centuries. Their
“canvas” was mud-plaster or limestone walls with watercolour paint.
They also cut outlines into stone walls, and painted the designs with
watercolour washes. They used gum arabic to make the paint cling to a
surface. The paintings have been preserved due to the lack of dampness.
These painting mostly covered the walls of tombs.
The Greeks decorated their temples and palaces with mural paintings.
Painted vases are about all that remains of Greek painting. Vases were
decorated using geometric shapes and human figures in a brown glaze
on pastel clay. By the 6th century, vase painters were using the black-
figured style, in which human figures were painted in black on the
natural red clay.
Roman mural paintings were found chiefly in the villas which are
country homes. Many of the pictures are copies of 4th-century B.C. Greek
paintings. The graceful poses of the figures painted on the walls of the
Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii inspired artists of the 18th century when
the city was excavated.
The best of Celtic and Saxon art is found in the texts of the 7th and 8th
centuries. Miniature painting in books were practiced since late Roman
times, and increased in the Middle Ages. Illumination is decoration of
the text, the capital letters, and the margins, bright colours were used. A
miniature is a small picture, often a portrait.
Very little wall painting survives from the Middle Ages. There were
several great series of frescoes painted in churches built during the
Romanesque period, 11th-13th centuries, but most of them have
disappeared. Churches of the Gothic period did not have enough wall
space for mural paintings. Book illustration was the main job of the
Gothic painter.
At the same time that van Eyck was working in the North, the Italians
were moving into a golden age of art and literature. This period is
called the Renaissance, which means rebirth, or revival. Italian art was
predominantly rooted in religion. Paintings were branded by spiritual
iconography, flat arrangements, unrealistic colour palettes, and
otherworldly figures, however, in the 1300s Italian artists based in
Florence abandoned this typical aesthetic and adopted a more humanist
approach to art. This time of revolution would in time be known as the
Italian Renaissance.

In the more modern period in the history of painting there has been
several changes that brought about different move such as cubism,
surrealism, fauvism and pop-art. Painting will always be changing and
is only limited by the individual holding the brush.
Although they weren't called mixed media artists, artists of the
Byzantine Empire often used gold-plated leaves on their paintings,
mosaics and manuscripts. Many artists still apply gold leaves to painted
wood panels to this day.
Pablo Picasso is considered one of the fathers of Cubism. In 1912 Picasso
created his first true mixed media piece, "Still Life with Chair Caning."
He pasted paper and oilcloth to canvas and combined them with painted
areas.
Drawing from the works of earlier artists, mixed media is now an
available art form for both professional and amateur artists. Collage
may be found in painting interacting with acrylics and watercolours.
Fibres, torn papers, inks, glitter and beads, are ground I works of fine
art and marketable pieces like greeting cards and quilts.
Watercolour paint is made by mixing dyes with a binder, usually gum arabic, and
then applying it with water to a surface like vellum which is a fine animal skin or
paper. When the water evaporate, the binder fixes the pigment to the surface.

Water based acrylic paint is a mixture of minute particles of plastic acrylic resin
suspended in water and dye. When the water evaporates the resin particles fuse
together forming a strong durable paint.

Paper marbling is a method of water surface design, which can produce patterns
similar to smooth marble. The patterns are the result of colour floated on either
plain water or a viscous solution known as size, and then carefully transferred to
an absorbent surface, such as paper or fabric.

Oil pastel is a painting and drawing media with characteristics similar to pastels
and wax crayons. Unlike soft pastel, which are made with a gum or methyl
cellulose binder, oil pastels consist of dye mixed with a non-drying oil and wax
binder. Causing the art work to be less powdery.
Soft pastels are made from pure mineral pigments. The same pigments are used
in oil paint, acrylics, and water colour. Pastels are usually combined with a
binder such as gum Tragacanth and some water.

Collage is a technique of an art production, primarily used in the visual arts,

where the artwork is made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating
a new whole.

Coloured pencils’ cores are wax- or oil-based and contain varying proportions of
pigments, additives, and binding agents.
Lionel Smit born on October 22, 1982 in Pretoria, South Africa is a contemporary
South African artist best known for portrait paintings and sculptures of Cape
Malay (or mixed-race South African women). Smit’s work mixes Abstract
Expressionism into both his paintings and sculptures, creating colorful and
creative interpretations of the human form. he studied sculpture from a young
age with his father, Anton Smit, who is also a renowned South African artist. The
younger Smit’s work has become very popular both nationally and
internationally, particularly in London and Hong Kong. His work can be found in
the collections of many prominent banks and wineries across South Africa. Smit
now resides and operates in Cape Town, South Africa.

In 2013 Smit's painting has been exhibited at the London National Portrait Gallery, where it received the
Viewer’s Choice Award, as well as selected as the 'face' of the BP Portrait Award that year for all campaigns. He
was recently honoured with a Ministerial Award from the Department of Culture for Visual Art and a highlight of
his career has been the publication of one of his paintings on the cover of Christie’s Auction Catalogue. Smit's
most recent installation Obscura, was shown at both Everard Read Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Merit Award, Vuleka, Sanlam Art Competition, Cape Town, South Africa
This is a symbol or other small design adopted by an organization to
identify its products, uniform, vehicles, etc.
A brochure is a small book or magazine containing pictures and
information about a product or service.
Packaging is materials used to wrap or protect goods.
This is a sequence of drawings in boxes that tell a story.