The Windsor Contemporary Art Fair show cases a wide range of media and over the next few pages details about the techniques are highlighted and explained to give visitors more of an insight into the skills displayed.

Oil paint is created by mixing oil with colour pigments. Linseed is the traditional oil used and the resulting paints are usually opaque with the artists able to achieve a textured finish as the paint dries very slowly. It is a medium that has been used since the sixteenth century and offers rich, vibrant colours. Most oil painters use canvas or board as a base, either painting directly onto a stretched canvas or onto a sheet that is later stretched prior to framing.

Acrylic paint was developed in the twentieth century. It is a type of resin where pigments are mixed with an acrylic emulsion, which can be thinned with water. When the paint dries it forms a tough, water resistance film and can be worked over almost immediately. Acrylics have good adhesive and elastic properties and they resist ultraviolet light and chemical degradation. However, the medium lacks the manitipulative qualities of oil.

Watercolours are water-based paints. Here the artist uses the translucent nature of the paint to build up an image and create a more subtle finish. The paper tone becomes part of the whole.

The term is derived from the French 'papiers colles' in which objects such as fabric, paper and board are adhered to a flat surface to create an image. The medium became recognised as a serious art form in the twentieth century.

Pastel artwork has a fluid, informal aspect to it. The pastel crayons or sticks come in a range of grades - soft, medium and hard. With each a different effect can be achieved and the strokes can be manipulated to blur and highlight. The finished piece is like a living thing as any contact can alter the lines and flakes of pastel can fall to alter the image. Some artists spray their work to fix the image, while others prefer to leave it natural.

Screen Print

Process whereby an image is made by forcing ink or paint through a stretched screen (traditionally silk). Areas of the screen are "blocked" by liquid filler or plastic sheet to control where the colour is applied. This is popular amongst artists for the ease with which it prints bold colours.

Etching

Process whereby images are drawn or scratched on to a metal plate through a stopping medium e.g. varnish and then dipped into acid which bites into the revealed areas. When ink is applied to the cleaned plate and then removed, an amount remains in the acid etched areas which when pressed into damp paper reveals an image. This process has many derivatives e.g collagraphy, a print made from objects glued to the plate. Modern alternative materials for creating relief plates include lino, rubber, acrylic and hardboard.

Aquatint Etching

This is an etching process that gives subtle tonality created by sprinkling tiny particles of resin onto the printing plate, which are melted when the plate is heated. This leaves tiny areas of bare metal to be etched. When repeated a soft image granularity is built up, that is characteristic of aquatint prints.

Lithograph

A mechanical process where a drawing is made with a waxy substance like crayon onto a plate (historically this was a stone). The plate is then wetted with water and ink is applied, which only sticks to the crayon. The plate is then pressed onto paper to form an image. As with screen prints a number of different images can be printed on top off each other to create a multicoloured image.

Photography

Silver Gelatinprints are the most usual means of making black and white prints from negatives. They are papers coated with a layer of gelatin which contains light sensitive silver salts. They were developed in the 1870's and by 1895 had generally replaced albumen prints because they were more stable, did not turn yellow and were simpler to produce. Gelatin silver prints remain the standard black and white print type.

Giclee Prints

Images are generated from high resolution digital scans and printed with archival quality inks onto various substrates including canvas, fine art, and photo-base paper. The giclee printing process provides better colour accuracy than many other means of reproduction.