Friday's art article - Common art terms defined

There's a lot of terminology within the art community. I've taken a few of the more common terms you will find on Cow Art and More and defined them here:

Acrylic paint: a fast-drying synthetic paint made from acrylic resin. Acrylic is a fast-drying water-based "plastic" paint valued for its versatility and clean up with soap and water.

Airbrush painting: A technique where an airbrush is used. An airbrush is a small, air-operated tool that sprays various media including ink and dye, but most often paint by a process of nebulization.

Alla prima: the method of oil painting in which the desired effects of the final painting are achieved in the first application of paint as opposed to the technique of covering the canvas in layers with the final painting being achieved at the end.

Art: the completed work of an artist which is the expression of creativity or imagination

Artist: a practitioner in the arts

Brush: a tool used to apply paints and inks to a surface, consisting of hairs, or bristles held in place by a ferrule attached to a handle. The quality of the hair determines the brush’s quality and cost. Each type of brush has a specific purpose, and different fibers are used for different mediums.

Brushstroke: The mark left by a loaded (filled) brush on a surface. Brushstrokes can be distinguished by their direction, thickness, texture, and quality. Some artists purposefully obscure individual brushstrokes to achieve a smooth surface. Other artists make their brushstrokes obvious to reveal the process of painting or to express movement or emotion.

Brushwork: the distinctive technique in which an artist uses to apply paint with a brush onto a medium, such as canvas.

Canvas: a heavy, closely woven fabric; an oil painting on canvas fabric; the support used for an acrylic or oil painting that is typically made of linen or cotton, stretched very tightly and tacked onto a wooden frame. Linen is considered far superior to the heavy cotton for a canvas.

Ceramics: the art of making objects of clay and firing them in a kiln. Wares of earthenware and porcelain, as well as sculpture are made by ceramists. Enamel is also a ceramic technique. Ceramic materials may be decorated with slip, engobe, or glaze, applied by a number of techniques.

Charcoal: Compressed burned wood used for drawing.

Collage: the technique of creating a work of art by adhering flat articles such as paper, fabrics, string or other materials to a flat surface such as a canvas whereby a three-dimensional result is achieved.

Color: a visual attribute of things that results from the light they emit or transmit or reflect; the visual response to the wavelengths of light, identified as red, blue, green, etc.; primary and secondary colors; warm, cool, and neutral colors, color value; hue; and intensity.

Composition: the arrangement of the design elements within the design area; the ordering of visual and emotional experience to give unity and consistency to a work of art and to allow the observer to comprehend its meaning.

Computer graphics: refers to visual images made with the assistance of computers. Computer graphics are often made with software called drawing, painting, illustrating and photographic programs or applications.

Decorative arts: collective term for such art forms as ceramics, enamels, furniture, glass, ivory, metalwork and textiles, especially when they take forms used as interior decoration.

Decoupage: the Victorian craft of cutting out motifs from paper gluing them to a surface and covering with as many layers of varnish as is required to give a completely smooth finish.

Design: the arrangement of the design elements to create a single effect. The organization or composition of a work; the skilled arrangement of its parts. An effective design is one in which the elements of art and principles of design have been combined to achieve an overall sense of unity.

Drawing: the act of representing an image on a surface by means of adding lines and shades, as with a pencil, crayon, pen, chalk, pastels, etc. Also refers to an illustration that has been drawn by hand.

Easel: an upright support (generally a tripod) used for displaying something. It is most often used to hold up an artist's canvas while the painter is working or to hold a completed painting for exhibition.

Egg tempera: A medium created by mixing pure, ground pigments with egg yolk. This was a very common medium before the invention of oil paints.

Elements of design: those qualities of a design that can be seen and worked with independently of its figurative content. They include line, form, value, texture, color, and shape.

En plein air: French for "in open air," used to describe paintings that have been executed outdoors, rather than in the studio.

Exhibition - A public showing of a piece or a collection of objects. Also called an exhibit.

Fine art: art created for purely aesthetic expression, communication, or contemplation.

Foam core: a strong, stiff, resilient, and lightweight board of polystyrene laminated with paper on both of its sides used as backing for art prints before framing. Also referred to as "foam board".

Frame: something made to enclose a picture or a mirror; enclose in a frame, as of a picture.

Fresco: The technique of blending wet plaster with water based paint. As the plaster dries it becomes a lasting surface base. The term applies to the technique as well as the painting itself.

Gallery: a room or series of rooms where works of art are exhibited.

Giclee: (pronounced "zee-clay") a printmaking process usually on an IRIS inkjet printer to make reproductions of a photograph of a painting; the printer can produce a very wide range of colors resulting in prints that are of very high quality.

Glaze: a thin layer of translucent acrylic or oil paint applied to all or part of a painting, to modify the tone or color underneath. Glazing is the process of using this technique.

Gold: A yellow precious metal, the chemical element of atomic number 79; comes as white or yellow. 24 karat gold is pure gold. 18 karat gold contains 18 parts gold and 6 parts other metal whereas 14 karat gold contains 14 parts gold and 10 parts other metals. White gold is created by alloying gold with another metal, usually nickel or palladium.

Gouache: a type of watercolor paint, made heavier and more opaque by the addition of a white pigment (chalk, Chinese white, etc.) in a gum arabic mixture. This results in a stronger color than ordinary watercolor.

Graphic art: two-dimensional art forms such as drawing, engraving, etching and illustration in their various forms.

Graphic design: the applied art of arranging image and text to communicate a message. It may be applied in any media, such as print, digital media, motion pictures, animation, product decoration, packaging, and signs.

Graphite: a soft, black, lustrous mineral made of carbon used in lead pencils, paints, crucibles, and as a lubricant.

Illustration board: heavy paper or card appropriate as a support for pencil, pen, watercolor, collage, etc.

Karat: system is used to reveal the amount of pure gold found in an item

Kiln: refers to an oven in which pottery or ceramic ware is fired.

Lacquer: a clear or colored finish material that dries to a hard, glossy finish. Usually applied with a sprayer, lacquer dries too quickly for smooth application with a brush, unless it is specially formulated.

Landscape: a painting, drawing or photograph which depicts outdoor scenery. They typically include trees, streams, buildings, crops, mountains, wildlife, rivers and forests.

Light table: refers to a table made especially for working with negatives, viewing transparencies and slides, and pasting up artwork, that has a translucent top with a light shining up through it.

Limited edition: a limit placed on the number of prints produced in a particular edition, in order to create a scarcity of the print. Limited editions are signed and numbered by the artist.

Linseed oil: the most popular drying oil used as paint medium. The medium hardens over several weeks as components of the oil polymerize to form an insoluble matrix. Driers can be added to accelerate this process.

Lithography: uses the principle that oil and water don't mix as the basis of the printing process; a method of printing using plates whose image areas attract ink and whose non image areas repel ink. Non image areas may be coated with water to repel the oily ink or may have a surface, such as silicon, that repels ink.

Masterpiece: a work done with extraordinary skill, especially a work of art, craft or intellect that is an exceptionally great achievement.

Medium: material or technique an artist works in; also, the component of paint in which the pigment is dispersed.

Mineral spirits: an inexpensive paint thinner which cleans brushes, thins paint, cleans furniture, and removes wax often used as a substitute for turpentine.

Mixed media: the art technique where an artist employs different types of physical materials such as ink and pastel or painting and collage etc. and combines them in a single work.

Montage: an artwork comprising of seemingly unrelated shots or scenes which, when combined of various existing images such as from photographs or prints and arranged so that they join, overlap or blend to create a new image which achieve meaning (as in, shot A and shot B together give rise to an third idea, which is then supported by shot C, and so on) (see illustration) .

Mosaic: an art medium in which small pieces of colored glass, stone, or ceramic tile called tessera are embedded in a background material such as plaster or mortar. Also, works made using this technique.

Mural: a large wall painting, often executed in fresco

Oil paint: a type of paint made from color particles( pigment) and linseed oil. Oil paint dries slowly, can be used thick or thin, and with glazes. Because it dries slowly, oil paint is easier to blend from dark to light creating the illusion of three-dimensions. Used by most artists since the Renaissance.

Original: the term 'original' can imply exclusivity or the idea that the work is 'one of a kind' rather than a copy by any method including offset-lithography, digital printing or by forgery.

Overpainting: the final layer of paint that is applied over the under painting or under layer after it has dried. The idea behind layers of painting is that the under painting is used to define the basic shapes and design so that the overpainting can be used to fill in the details of the piece.

Palette: A thin piece of glass, wood or other material, or pad of paper, which is used to hold the paint to be used in painting; also, the range of colors used by a particular painter.

Palette knife: a tool originally used by artists for scraping up and mixing the paint from the palette, this implement has been adopted for the application of heavily impacted paint which is spread thickly like butter

Palladium: chemical element of atomic number 46, a rare silvery-white metal resembling platinum; does not tarnish at ordinary temperatures and is used (alloyed with gold) in jewelry

Paper mâché: a technique for creating forms by mixing wet paper pulp with glue or paste. The form hardens as it dries, and becomes suitable for painting. Although paper mâché is a French word which literally means "chewed paper", it was originated by the Chinese - the inventors of paper.

Pastel: a crayon made from pigment mixed with gum and water and pressed into a stick-shaped form; a work of art created from pastels; a pale color.

Photorealism: a style of painting in which an image is created in such exact detail that it looks like a photograph; uses everyday subject matter, and often is larger than life.

Pigment: any coloring agent, made from natural or synthetic substances, used in paints or drawing materials; the substance in paint or anything that absorbs light, producing (reflecting) the same color as the pigment.

Plein air: French for "open air", referring to landscapes painted out of doors with the intention of catching the impression of the open air.

Portrait: a painting, photograph, or other artistic representation of a person.

Principles of design: the basic aesthetic considerations that guide organization of a work of art. They include balance, movement, emphasis, contrast, proportion, space, and unity.

Printmaking: the process by which a work of art can be recreated in great quantity from a single image usually prepared from a plate.

Quill: a pen is made from a flight feather (preferably a primary) of a large bird, most often a goose. Quills were used as instruments for writing with ink before the metal dip pen, the fountain pen, and eventually the ball point pen came into use.

Rabbet: in art, the "L" cut all around the perimeter of the frame, against which glass, mat, or picture panels are installed (see illustration).

Reproduction: a copy of an original print or fine art piece. A reproduction could be in the form of a print, like an offset-lithographic print, or even reproduced in the same medium as the original, as in an oil painting.

Sculpture: any three-dimensional form created as an artistic expression. Sculpture is primarily concerned with space: occupying it, relating to it, and influencing the perception of it.

Sketch: a rough drawing used to capture the basic elements and structure of a situation often used as the basis for a more detailed work.

Stained glass: glass that has been colored or stained through different processes. This term is also used to refer to the art of cutting colored glass into different shapes and joining them together with lead strips to create a pictorial window design

Sterling silver: an alloy of silver containing 92.5% by weight of silver and 7.5% by weight of other metals, usually copper.

Still life: a painting or other two-dimensional work of art representing inanimate objects such as bottles, fruit, and flowers. Also, the arrangement of these objects from which a drawing, painting, or other art work is made.

Stretcher: a wooden frame over which the canvas of a painting is stretched.

Texture: the tactile surface characteristics of a work of art that are either felt or perceived visually.

Three-dimensional: occupying or giving the illusion of three dimensions (height, width, depth).

Thumbnail sketch: crude, small pencil drawings used to develop the initial concept for a design.

Trompe l'oeil: French for "fool the eye." A two-dimensional representation that is so naturalistic that it looks actual or real (three-dimensional.) This form of painting was first used by the Romans thousands of years ago in frescoes and murals.

Turpentine: a high quality oil paint thinner and solvent.

Two-dimensional: having two dimensions (height and width); referring to something that is flat.

Underdrawing: preliminary drawing that lies under the final painted or inked image.

Underpainting: the preliminary coats of paint in a painting that render the basic outline before the final paint layers are added to complete the work.

Vignette: an image or painting where the borders are undefined and seem to fade away gradually until it blends into the background.

Wash: used in watercolor painting, brush drawing, and occasionally in oil painting to describe a broad thin layer of diluted pigment or ink. Also refers to a drawing made in this technique.

Watercolor: a water-based paint that is a translucent wash of pigment; a painting produced with watercolors.

Watermark: a watermark is a design embossed into a piece of paper during its production and used for identification of the paper and paper maker. The watermark can be seen when the paper is held up to light.

Wet-on-wet: a painting technique that is well-known as being the primary method of painting used by Bob Ross. Since lighter colors will usually mix with darker colors if laid over top of them while wet, the technique relies on painting from light colors up. This gives the painting a soft look, and allows the colors to be blended to the painter's desire.