Traditionally, artists blend pigments (mix colours) on a palette. Pointillist painters do not mix the colours on the palette at all they just use the colours straight from the tube. Traditional painters, and also impressionist painters, use many types of brushstrokes, and many textures of paint. The surface of the painting may have flat colour, lines, squiggles and dabs of paint. In a pointillist painting, every part of the picture is done in tiny dots, and most of the dots are about the same size. Pointillism is usually done in oil paints, because they are thick and do not run into each other when they are painted on the canvas.