Sometimes when I look around Wet Paint I am surprised at what products have emerged over the past decade as serious artists’ materials. I never expected to be selling aerosols. I never imagined professionals choosing paint markers over a tube of paint. And like earlier movements in contemporary art, artists’ influences today come from outside the traditional educational venues and with them come different materials. And in our quick response culture, art materials manufacturers have been able to take commercial technology and marry with fine art material attributes. So we have spray paint and paint markers that have artist palettes of colors. They have made the colors more light fast and permanent. They have altered viscosity to move the colors faster or slower.
One thing that makes paint markers and aerosols alike is that they have built in delivery systems. You no longer need a brush. While I personally find brushes to be the most beautiful of all art supplies, they are that additional step between the artist and the art. I believe this immediacy and directness is why these “new” paint mediums are so popular with painters and sculptors and printmakers and calligraphers and artists of every persuasion.