The word "media" means a tool, or more precisely, a toolkit in fine arts. In the present case, this means that certain paintings are created through the individual application and combination of various technical solutions in painting.
THAT IS TO SAY:
One can paint on anything. On any substrate. Canvas, paper, wood panel, metal sheet, or other materials which can be "clean," sketched, or pre-prepared with other motifs.
The most common method is painting on white primed canvas (in oil painting).
However, it is also possible to paint on a canvas that has been previously "printed" - even with a special machine after scanning anything - to a desired color, pattern, or tonal gradient. It may also be "decorated," prepared, or treated with a previously developed figure or detail of a work, naturally according to the artist’s vision. The new work, the new painting, is then completed by "involving" and merging the pattern elements or color composition depicted on the resulting surface.
Mixed media is not of lower value than a painting created on a white canvas; in fact, it is sometimes even richer in terms of the circumstances of its creation. Mixed media is not a "painting / not a painting" type of binary question, but a TECHNICAL definition, similar to classifications such as watercolor or even ink drawing.
