How to Speak Art
The ultimate how to for quickly learning the "art lingo"
for those of you that either cut or slept through art classes. These are brief definitions of all the art terms you will ever need to know in a lifetime. With this new knowledge gained you�ll be able to impress all of your friends and relatives as an art aficionado.
Acid-Free: Materials with a ph value of 7 or greater. This is based on the acidity-alkali scale of 0-14. Using acid-free products papers, mat boards, backings, glues and tapes prevents the brownish yellow streaking (acid burns) over time.
Acrylic Paint: Made from three basic ingredients: color pigment, water and a synthetic resin that acts as the binder. Acrylic paint is made in two consistencies thick and buttery in tubes or a liquid in bottles. There is a variety of specialty acrylics now available such as Iridescent (simulating metals, gold, silver or bronze), Interference (colors that can change when viewed at different angles). Airbrush (colors are thinned with water to flow through an airbrush). Acrylic Ink (specifically made for use with drawing pens)
Animation Art: Artwork that is produced from animated films are called "cels" referring to the films on which they were produced.
Archival Ink: Special inks used in the fine art print making process. These inks have been developed for color intensity, saturation and longevity.
Archival Paper: Acid-free papers used for fine art print making. They are readily available in a variety of weights and textures.
Artists Proof: Fine art prints that are reserved for the artists personal use. Usually about 10% of a print run is reserved for the artists proofs and they are clearly marked with A/P as opposed to a edition number.
Blind Stamp: An embossed stamp on a print that can identify the artist, the printer or the collector. Sometimes also referred to as a "chop mark."
Block Print: A print making technique in which an image is transferred from a carved piece of wood (woodcut) or linoleum (linocut). The artist applies oil-based inks to the surface of the carved block with a roller. Once the ink(s) have been applied the artists flips then carved block over onto a sheet of paper and presses down with equal pressure. In a block print the ink remains on the areas that has not been cut away. Normally block prints are made in very small numbers. It is very time consuming.
Canceling: An artist sometimes "cancels" a printing plate after a certain number of prints has been made. In order to do that they may scratch an X onto the plate or cross a heavy line through it.
Cartoon Art: (The Comic Strip/Editorial Cartoon) Original illustrations or paintings that were produced strictly for the newspaper or magazine usage.
Cast Paper: A type of art that is made from placing a mixture of fluid (wet ground) paper (sometimes color bits and pieces are added to enhance the result) into a mold an allowing it to dry for at least 24 hours. The result is a lightweight cast of the mold .
Crafts: A group of items which have been produced using original art techniques that are considered fine art crafts are: pottery, ceramics, clay pieces blown glass, carvings (both wood & stone), textiles, and weaving. These are created by artists they are original and can be unique individual pieces.
Color: In general is divided into three basic groups: 1. Hue - the basic color. 2. Saturation - the purity or brilliance of a color. 3. Value - the intensity of the color, light or dark.
Color Wheel: The easiest way to convey the relationship of colors to one another is to arrange them in a circle. The primary colors which are: red, blue and yellow are placed equally around the circle. Pairs of primary colors are combined to produce secondary colors which are: orange, green and violet. The secondary colors are then placed in between the primary colors resulting in the color wheel. By mixing a primary color with a secondary color across from it on the color wheel you derive the tertiary color. For example primary red mixed with secondary violet produces tertiary red-violet.
Complementary Colors: Any two colors opposite one another on the color wheel. For example red and green are complements as are blue and orange and yellow and violet. An interesting fact that artist all share is, that if you mix two complementary colors together you achieve a variety of beautiful grays.
Digital Art: Pictures made with the use of a computer, scanner, digital camera and printer.
Diptych: A work of art produced in two parts meant to be shown side by side. The most common examples are freestanding folding screens or room dividers.
Documentation: This is the information that is available on the edition of a print. It tells the artist�s name, the printer's name, the number of prints in the edition, the date, etc.
Dry Mounting: The method of adhering materials such as photographs to a backing with out using liquid glues or pastes. A sheet of dry-mounting adhesive is placed between the photograph and the backing material, then it is placed in a dry mount press, which combines both heat and pressure to adhere the photograph securely to the backing material.
Dry Brush: A watercolor technique using a stiff paint with very little water added. This method can give the artist a very controlled way of adding it subtle color.
Edition(s): A Limited Edition is a predetermined number of prints that are in a sequential order and are usually signed by the artist. (That will be the only print run of the original artwork ever made). Typically a Limited Edition print will be a print run of 250 or less and the numbering would look similar to this: 25/250 or 25 of 250. Open Edition prints are not numbered and have a much larger print run.
Giclee: One of the most continually mispronounced words of the last 10 years. The word is pronounced "zhee-clay". Giclee is a French word meaning to spray on. This is breakthrough process (it is like using the largest and highest quality ink jet printer) has become readily available through the printing industry. It is the newest print standard for printers, publishers and artists. Digital images are made into proofs for the artist to color correct to match to the original art work (this process used to take days, even weeks to do and now it can be done within hours). Archival inks and papers are used in the giclee process which can offer up to 75 years of light fastness and UV resistance.
Graphic: The term for any multiple original works of art on paper. The graphic media includes: lithographs, intaglios and serigraphs. A reproduction made on an offset press is not a graphic.
Intaglio: Another mispronounced art word. The word is Italian and is pronounced "in-tahl-ee-o". This is a term used to group a certain type of printing such as etchings and engravings. Both of these types of printings take pace after the image whether carved or acid etched into a plate is then hand-inked and then using a press is transferred to paper. A distinguishing mark of this type of printing is the impression that the plate leaves in the paper.
Lithograph: Basically artwork that is printed from a stone or metal plate. This process begins by drawing an image onto a stone or metal plate with an oil based stick/crayon. The plate is then rinsed with water (the oil based stick/crayon repels the water) then specially formulated lithographic inks are applied one with a roller. The inked up image is then transferred to paper. The number of colors determine the number of plates used. As each section of the image may require a different color.
Mixed Media: Today's artists often combined two or more print making methods to produce this type of work.
Mono type: The only type of print that is made in an edition of one. A design is created by the artist in either a drawing or painting on a flat surface and then covered with a high quality paper. The next step in the process is to pull it through a small hand crank press. The result is a one of a kind print.
Offset Lithography: This process is used by printers worldwide when printing high volume runs which require thousands sheets of paper to produce magazines, calendars, posters etc.
Oil Paint: Paint that contains pigment and a vegetable oil binder. The most common binder that has been used for hundreds of years is linseed oil. Various oils have been used independently and along with linseed oil. The amount of oil to color pigment may vary from one color to the next so drying times are different. Over the years driers and binders have been added to the color pigments to improve their content, texture and pliability. Oil painting has been in existence for over five hundred years, and still remains at the top of the popularity.
Oil Paint Types: There are five types of oil paints: Alkyd: faster drying than oil, less likely to crack than oil paint. Oil: slow drying, colors dry at different rates, can crack and yellow over time. Oil Pastel: Doesn't dry but remains soft to the touch much like crayons, can scratch and is susceptible to water damage. Oil Stick: Dries slow, but faster than oil paint, can crack and yellow over time. Water Miscible Oil: Dries slow like regular oil paint but cleans up with soap and water, can crack and yellow over time.
Old Masters: Distinguished artists of the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Pastels: Comprised of chalk pigment and an organic binder usually gum tragacanth which is extracted from plants. The ingredients are then ground together and formed into sticks or blocks and then dried. Pastels are available in three types: hard pastels, soft pastels and pastel pencils.
Photograph: Using a camera to capture an image on film and developing it with the use of photographic equipment, chemicals and specially treated photographic paper. The end result can be simply "a picture" or with a little more care "a fine art print." Most fine art photographs are produced typically in Black and White (sometimes referred to as Silver Gelatin Prints).
Poster: Used for advertising or communication the poster has been around for more than a hundred years. More often than not posters have a large graphic and type that conveys the communication. They are printed as inexpensively as possible.
Print: The term is generic for a single graphic reproduced by a variety of printing techniques. At one time the term "print" meant that it was an original graphic. With the arrival of the offset press, terms quickly changed and the single "print" evolved into the "print making" process.
Restrikes: Reprinting of antique prints. Restrikes can be made from the original plates or they can be created from new plates to resemble the original antique one. The prints should be labeled as restrikes as to avoid confusion to the buyer.
Sepia Print: A photographic developing process that produces a sepia or brown colored print. It is based on the type of exposure to chemical solutions used and developing times. With the use of different types of paper sepia prints can be made into fine art prints with subtle tonal changes.
Silk screen: Sometimes called Serigraph. This is one of the most popular and practical types of printing. Almost anything in the world can and most probably has been silk screened from coffee cups to T-shirts. The image can be as simple as one color or as complex as twenty colors. It began however as transfer process. A finely woven silk or nylon screen is attached to a frame (similar to a picture frame). To begin the screen is covered with a light sensitive emulsion and left to dry, the image is placed on the dry screen and exposed to light. Next the emulsion is cleaned off the screen an the image is appears. The screen is then placed on paper (or say a T-shirt) a specially formulated silk screening ink is used and pressed through the screen with a squeege. This process is used for each part of the image or each color applied.
Soft Pastel: These pastels contain less binder than hard pastels do. They deposit color more easily with lighter stokes.
Tempera: This paint is made of a color pigment and a binder. There are two types of tempera paint. The traditional type that is made with egg as the binder and has been used for several hundred years which now is referred to as Egg Tempera (Painter Andrew Wyeth is an expert in Egg Tempera). The second, cheap starch or glue based type mainly used for childrens paints which is what most people think of when they hear the words Tempera Paints
Thumbnail: Typically a small rough sketch or design for a picture, used for solving object placement and color problems.
Tone: The relative measure of light or darkness of a color, sometimes referred to as a tint of a color.
Trompe l'oeil: It's another one of those hard to say words. The word is French and is pronounced "trahmp loeh". It simple means to "fool the eye" and that is done by rendering objects with photo realism. Trompe l'oeil trys to fool the viewer into believing that he is seeing something that�s not there.
Ultraviolet Light: The invisible light part of the sunlight that causes deterioration of materials such as paper and the fading of some pigments. By keeping the art out of direct sunlight or by some method of filtering the UV light you can protect your art for many years to come.
Underpainting: It's the first coat of paint that begins the painting giving the artists shapes and color to build upon.
Value: Relative lightness or darkness of a color, tone or shade. Dark colors have low value and light colors have high value. To stimulate visual excitement an artist will place black and white next to each other, the contrast will provide much more interest than two colors that are similar.
Vignette: A treatment used on a picture where the edges gradually fade away. Vignettes can come in all different shapes and sizes such as circles, squares, ovals stars, triangles the possibilities are endless.
Wash: A thin layer paint usually transparent placed over a large area.
Watercolor: Paint that consists of color pigment and a binder of gum Arabic, a preservative, a wetting agent, a special sugar mix, glycerin and water. Watercolors are difficult to work with because of the thinness of the paint, but the rewards are endless.
Wet-in-Wet: A painting technique primarily used in watercolor in which paint is applied to an already wet surface then allowed to seek and roll to it's own level. The results are different each time.
Acid-Free: Materials with a ph value of 7 or greater. This is based on the acidity-alkali scale of 0-14. Using acid-free products papers, mat boards, backings, glues and tapes prevents the brownish yellow streaking (acid burns) over time.
Acrylic Paint: Made from three basic ingredients: color pigment, water and a synthetic resin that acts as the binder. Acrylic paint is made in two consistencies thick and buttery in tubes or a liquid in bottles. There is a variety of specialty acrylics now available such as Iridescent (simulating metals, gold, silver or bronze), Interference (colors that can change when viewed at different angles). Airbrush (colors are thinned with water to flow through an airbrush). Acrylic Ink (specifically made for use with drawing pens)
Animation Art: Artwork that is produced from animated films are called "cels" referring to the films on which they were produced.
Archival Ink: Special inks used in the fine art print making process. These inks have been developed for color intensity, saturation and longevity.
Archival Paper: Acid-free papers used for fine art print making. They are readily available in a variety of weights and textures.
Artists Proof: Fine art prints that are reserved for the artists personal use. Usually about 10% of a print run is reserved for the artists proofs and they are clearly marked with A/P as opposed to a edition number.
Blind Stamp: An embossed stamp on a print that can identify the artist, the printer or the collector. Sometimes also referred to as a "chop mark."
Block Print: A print making technique in which an image is transferred from a carved piece of wood (woodcut) or linoleum (linocut). The artist applies oil-based inks to the surface of the carved block with a roller. Once the ink(s) have been applied the artists flips then carved block over onto a sheet of paper and presses down with equal pressure. In a block print the ink remains on the areas that has not been cut away. Normally block prints are made in very small numbers. It is very time consuming.
Canceling: An artist sometimes "cancels" a printing plate after a certain number of prints has been made. In order to do that they may scratch an X onto the plate or cross a heavy line through it.
Cartoon Art: (The Comic Strip/Editorial Cartoon) Original illustrations or paintings that were produced strictly for the newspaper or magazine usage.
Cast Paper: A type of art that is made from placing a mixture of fluid (wet ground) paper (sometimes color bits and pieces are added to enhance the result) into a mold an allowing it to dry for at least 24 hours. The result is a lightweight cast of the mold .
Crafts: A group of items which have been produced using original art techniques that are considered fine art crafts are: pottery, ceramics, clay pieces blown glass, carvings (both wood & stone), textiles, and weaving. These are created by artists they are original and can be unique individual pieces.
Color: In general is divided into three basic groups: 1. Hue - the basic color. 2. Saturation - the purity or brilliance of a color. 3. Value - the intensity of the color, light or dark.
Color Wheel: The easiest way to convey the relationship of colors to one another is to arrange them in a circle. The primary colors which are: red, blue and yellow are placed equally around the circle. Pairs of primary colors are combined to produce secondary colors which are: orange, green and violet. The secondary colors are then placed in between the primary colors resulting in the color wheel. By mixing a primary color with a secondary color across from it on the color wheel you derive the tertiary color. For example primary red mixed with secondary violet produces tertiary red-violet.
Complementary Colors: Any two colors opposite one another on the color wheel. For example red and green are complements as are blue and orange and yellow and violet. An interesting fact that artist all share is, that if you mix two complementary colors together you achieve a variety of beautiful grays.
Digital Art: Pictures made with the use of a computer, scanner, digital camera and printer.
Diptych: A work of art produced in two parts meant to be shown side by side. The most common examples are freestanding folding screens or room dividers.
Documentation: This is the information that is available on the edition of a print. It tells the artist�s name, the printer's name, the number of prints in the edition, the date, etc.
Dry Mounting: The method of adhering materials such as photographs to a backing with out using liquid glues or pastes. A sheet of dry-mounting adhesive is placed between the photograph and the backing material, then it is placed in a dry mount press, which combines both heat and pressure to adhere the photograph securely to the backing material.
Dry Brush: A watercolor technique using a stiff paint with very little water added. This method can give the artist a very controlled way of adding it subtle color.
Edition(s): A Limited Edition is a predetermined number of prints that are in a sequential order and are usually signed by the artist. (That will be the only print run of the original artwork ever made). Typically a Limited Edition print will be a print run of 250 or less and the numbering would look similar to this: 25/250 or 25 of 250. Open Edition prints are not numbered and have a much larger print run.
Giclee: One of the most continually mispronounced words of the last 10 years. The word is pronounced "zhee-clay". Giclee is a French word meaning to spray on. This is breakthrough process (it is like using the largest and highest quality ink jet printer) has become readily available through the printing industry. It is the newest print standard for printers, publishers and artists. Digital images are made into proofs for the artist to color correct to match to the original art work (this process used to take days, even weeks to do and now it can be done within hours). Archival inks and papers are used in the giclee process which can offer up to 75 years of light fastness and UV resistance.
Graphic: The term for any multiple original works of art on paper. The graphic media includes: lithographs, intaglios and serigraphs. A reproduction made on an offset press is not a graphic.
Intaglio: Another mispronounced art word. The word is Italian and is pronounced "in-tahl-ee-o". This is a term used to group a certain type of printing such as etchings and engravings. Both of these types of printings take pace after the image whether carved or acid etched into a plate is then hand-inked and then using a press is transferred to paper. A distinguishing mark of this type of printing is the impression that the plate leaves in the paper.
Lithograph: Basically artwork that is printed from a stone or metal plate. This process begins by drawing an image onto a stone or metal plate with an oil based stick/crayon. The plate is then rinsed with water (the oil based stick/crayon repels the water) then specially formulated lithographic inks are applied one with a roller. The inked up image is then transferred to paper. The number of colors determine the number of plates used. As each section of the image may require a different color.
Mixed Media: Today's artists often combined two or more print making methods to produce this type of work.
Mono type: The only type of print that is made in an edition of one. A design is created by the artist in either a drawing or painting on a flat surface and then covered with a high quality paper. The next step in the process is to pull it through a small hand crank press. The result is a one of a kind print.
Offset Lithography: This process is used by printers worldwide when printing high volume runs which require thousands sheets of paper to produce magazines, calendars, posters etc.
Oil Paint: Paint that contains pigment and a vegetable oil binder. The most common binder that has been used for hundreds of years is linseed oil. Various oils have been used independently and along with linseed oil. The amount of oil to color pigment may vary from one color to the next so drying times are different. Over the years driers and binders have been added to the color pigments to improve their content, texture and pliability. Oil painting has been in existence for over five hundred years, and still remains at the top of the popularity.
Oil Paint Types: There are five types of oil paints: Alkyd: faster drying than oil, less likely to crack than oil paint. Oil: slow drying, colors dry at different rates, can crack and yellow over time. Oil Pastel: Doesn't dry but remains soft to the touch much like crayons, can scratch and is susceptible to water damage. Oil Stick: Dries slow, but faster than oil paint, can crack and yellow over time. Water Miscible Oil: Dries slow like regular oil paint but cleans up with soap and water, can crack and yellow over time.
Old Masters: Distinguished artists of the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Pastels: Comprised of chalk pigment and an organic binder usually gum tragacanth which is extracted from plants. The ingredients are then ground together and formed into sticks or blocks and then dried. Pastels are available in three types: hard pastels, soft pastels and pastel pencils.
Photograph: Using a camera to capture an image on film and developing it with the use of photographic equipment, chemicals and specially treated photographic paper. The end result can be simply "a picture" or with a little more care "a fine art print." Most fine art photographs are produced typically in Black and White (sometimes referred to as Silver Gelatin Prints).
Poster: Used for advertising or communication the poster has been around for more than a hundred years. More often than not posters have a large graphic and type that conveys the communication. They are printed as inexpensively as possible.
Print: The term is generic for a single graphic reproduced by a variety of printing techniques. At one time the term "print" meant that it was an original graphic. With the arrival of the offset press, terms quickly changed and the single "print" evolved into the "print making" process.
Restrikes: Reprinting of antique prints. Restrikes can be made from the original plates or they can be created from new plates to resemble the original antique one. The prints should be labeled as restrikes as to avoid confusion to the buyer.
Sepia Print: A photographic developing process that produces a sepia or brown colored print. It is based on the type of exposure to chemical solutions used and developing times. With the use of different types of paper sepia prints can be made into fine art prints with subtle tonal changes.
Silk screen: Sometimes called Serigraph. This is one of the most popular and practical types of printing. Almost anything in the world can and most probably has been silk screened from coffee cups to T-shirts. The image can be as simple as one color or as complex as twenty colors. It began however as transfer process. A finely woven silk or nylon screen is attached to a frame (similar to a picture frame). To begin the screen is covered with a light sensitive emulsion and left to dry, the image is placed on the dry screen and exposed to light. Next the emulsion is cleaned off the screen an the image is appears. The screen is then placed on paper (or say a T-shirt) a specially formulated silk screening ink is used and pressed through the screen with a squeege. This process is used for each part of the image or each color applied.
Soft Pastel: These pastels contain less binder than hard pastels do. They deposit color more easily with lighter stokes.
Tempera: This paint is made of a color pigment and a binder. There are two types of tempera paint. The traditional type that is made with egg as the binder and has been used for several hundred years which now is referred to as Egg Tempera (Painter Andrew Wyeth is an expert in Egg Tempera). The second, cheap starch or glue based type mainly used for childrens paints which is what most people think of when they hear the words Tempera Paints
Thumbnail: Typically a small rough sketch or design for a picture, used for solving object placement and color problems.
Tone: The relative measure of light or darkness of a color, sometimes referred to as a tint of a color.
Trompe l'oeil: It's another one of those hard to say words. The word is French and is pronounced "trahmp loeh". It simple means to "fool the eye" and that is done by rendering objects with photo realism. Trompe l'oeil trys to fool the viewer into believing that he is seeing something that�s not there.
Ultraviolet Light: The invisible light part of the sunlight that causes deterioration of materials such as paper and the fading of some pigments. By keeping the art out of direct sunlight or by some method of filtering the UV light you can protect your art for many years to come.
Underpainting: It's the first coat of paint that begins the painting giving the artists shapes and color to build upon.
Value: Relative lightness or darkness of a color, tone or shade. Dark colors have low value and light colors have high value. To stimulate visual excitement an artist will place black and white next to each other, the contrast will provide much more interest than two colors that are similar.
Vignette: A treatment used on a picture where the edges gradually fade away. Vignettes can come in all different shapes and sizes such as circles, squares, ovals stars, triangles the possibilities are endless.
Wash: A thin layer paint usually transparent placed over a large area.
Watercolor: Paint that consists of color pigment and a binder of gum Arabic, a preservative, a wetting agent, a special sugar mix, glycerin and water. Watercolors are difficult to work with because of the thinness of the paint, but the rewards are endless.
Wet-in-Wet: A painting technique primarily used in watercolor in which paint is applied to an already wet surface then allowed to seek and roll to it's own level. The results are different each time.
