When you think of wall art chances are you are thinking about some form of painting, however reality looks much different, there are many different types of wall art. Through history people have looked for different ways of expressing their love for art through the paintings they hang on their walls. In this article we will discuss the three main forms of wall art, these are the oil paintings, canvas prints and finally canvas photos.
Oil Paintings
The first types of wall art that we will examine are oil paintings. To put it simply, oil paintings is the term used for painting on canvas with colors that are composed of different oils. Oil paintings have been around since the fifth century, although it was not really until the middle ages that oil paintings became popular in the western world.
In order to create the artwork, the painter will use different oils to get different colors and results on the canvas. Most commonly the paint is made of linseed oil, poppy seed oil as well as walnut oil. The painter will use different kinds of oil in order to generate different effects on the painting. For instance the painter might use one kind of oil in order to achieve a certain type of color, while another kind of oil will have an influence on the drying time of the paint, in order to give the painting a more glossy look the oil is sometimes combined with a resin.
It is most common for oil painter to use a paintbrush to paint with, though some painters use rags or sponges to apply the paint. Oil paintings are traditionally painted on a canvas, these are linen cloths stretched over a frame in order to create a flat plane for the painter to paint on, in recent years although painters have started using cotton fabric can be much cheaper and can easily be mass produced.
Canvas Prints
The second type of wall art that we will look at is canvas prints. Canvas prints gained immense popularity in the 1990's with the advances in photography and printing. Canvas Prints are simply paintings that are printed onto a canvas; the canvas is then stretched over a frame and finally hung on the wall. Canvas prints are produced on printers that can print on large rolls of canvas; the most common width for the canvas is 1.5 meters wide while the length is only determined by the size of the painting.
Canvas Photos
The third kind of wall art that we will look at is the canvas photo. In the past 20 years canvas photos have gotten much more popular, sometimes this is due to the fact that people are looking for different ways of decorating their homes with photos. While the canvas photo is similar to the canvas print in the sense that they are also printed onto large canvas rolls. Canvas photos mostly resembling photographs that are printed onto the canvas. These photos are then also stretched onto a frame.