What is Painting? >Painng is the pracce of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (support base). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and airbrushes, can be used. Painng is a mode of creave expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, gesture (as in gestural painng), composion, narraon (as in narrave art), or abstracon (as in abstract art), among other aesthec modes, may serve to manifest the expressive and conceptual intenon of the praconer. Painngs can be naturalisc and representaonal (as in a sll life or landscape painng), photographic, abstract, narrave, symbolisc (as in Symbolist art), emove (as in Expressionism), or polical in nature (as in Arvism). A poron of the history of painng in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by spiritual mofs and ideas. Examples of this kind of painng range from artwork depicng mythological figures on poery, to Biblical scenes rendered on the interior walls and ceiling of the Sisne Chapel, to scenes from the life of Buddha or other images of Eastern religious origin. In art, the term painng describes both the act and the result of the acon. The support for painngs includes such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, clay, leaf, copper and concrete, and the painng may incorporate mulple other materials including sand, clay, paper, plaster, gold leaf, as well as objects. The term painng is also used outside art as a common trade among craſtsmen and builders. Characteristics of Painting 1. A Strong Focal Point - A focal point is not like the big, bold “X”that marks the spot on a treasure map. It can take on any shape and size. It can be bold but it can also be subtle. A dappling of light, a pop of color, an expression or emphac gesture — any of these can become a focal point in a composion. Regardless of how it is created, its purpose should be to engage the viewer or act as the culminaon of the momentum built in the work.