In the primering stage, the painter must define what medium he or she is going to use. Possibilities include: water colour, oil colour, acrylic colour, and other common and uncommon media. With the painting media chosen, then it is time to choose the complimentary media that is the place where the paints will stay. Just like every media have their own characteristics, the complimentary media too require different handling.

The following is several different methods of preparing the complimentary media:

• For oil colour painting, the complimentary media can be canvas or cardboard. Before applying colour, the canvas should be coated with basic coat, whose function is to attach the paint to the complimentary media.
• For water colour painting, the complimentary media can be paper or cardboard. If canvas requires colour coating, then paper requires dampening. You can dampen a paper by submersing the paper under water and then drying it up. Dampening can also be done by brushing out water on top of the paper.
• For acrylic colour there are various types of complimentary media possible. Not only canvas and cardboard, you can use wooden board, even stone. For the complimentary media to create rich acrylic colours, a coating with gesso is required.

Gesso is the special coating for acrylic paints but can be used for oil colour, and it cannot be used for other types of media coating such as water colour. The same goes for oil colour base coating, it cannot be used for acrylic colours.