There are also similarities in the technical aspects of the paintings. In the same way as local materials predominate in the paintings, certain iconographic techniques, such as the polychrome bison and deer, are recurrent. However, the diversity of techniques employed should be emphasised, with the cave providing archaeologists with a veritable catalogue of Palaeolithic artistic practices.
Materials
As a general rule, the palette of Palaeolithic artists was produced from materials found in the vicinity of the decorated sites and sometimes even within them. The pigments are of mineral origin (ochres, haematites, manganese, etc.) and vegetable origin (charcoal). When a material is abundant in nature, it tends to be used in the chosen technique, such as manganese for the Périgord caves.
Harvested in the form of nodules, the coloured rocks (black, yellow, brown or red) could be used to draw with directly or crushed or ground in mortars, so that they could be mixed with a binder such as a vegetable or animal fat – but sometimes just water – in order to obtain a paint. But more original treatments, such as heating, could be used to change the natural colours of the pigments from yellow to a more or less intense red. It seems that natural clays from the cave were also used in the colour mixes. The colours range from yellows to dark browns and reds, along with blacks of varying depths. The colour of the rock itself contributes to the artists' palette; when the substrate is engraved or scraped, a new hue is added.
Techniques
All techniques were used at Font-de-Gaume. Black and red drawings, engraving alone, solid black, brown or red colours, shaped solid colours, and a mixed technique combining painting, drawing and engraving. Father Breuil saw a chronological evolution in the different expressions chosen, based on the study of layering. But technique alone is not enough to identify the era in which an image was created. A number of conventions need to be combined: theme, composition, style and, finally, technique, to define the visual expression of a culture. Some of the animal figures are drawn in black or red pencil, while others are given shape by the distribution of the black paint, which emphasises the variations in their fur or body mass, playing with the lowlights and highlights. For these solid black pieces, complementary engraving can also indicate details, enhance contours or create "whites". The same is true of animals for which brown and reddish hues have been mixed, certainly directly on the wall using the affresco technique.
Layout of the figures
The layout is adapted to the linear shape of the cave walls, creating rough friezes. When the morphology changes, as in the Chamber of the Bison, the entire space is occupied and the composition becomes revolving. In some places, the animals are juxtaposed, creating the appearance of a scene, while in others they are superimposed, as if the artist had ignored what was already there. These choices are common in cave art. Sometimes, the location of a particular animal will be dictated by the morphology of the substrate on which it has been drawn. The leg and belly of a horse seen in a concretion or the angle of a cornice inspiring the back of a bison. The drawing will merely complete these shapes. It is often difficult to determine whether the desire was to create a composition that would be staged for those looking at it or whether the aim of the project was essentially to place a particular figure in the chosen location without concern for the final visual result. The lack of space to stand back in certain areas of Font-de-Gaume and the overlapping of the images sometimes suggest this.