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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Abstract Art: Non representational and non-figurative art that usually contains conceptual forms and patterns.

Acrylic Paint: A plastic binder medium for pigments that is soluble in water; developed circa 1960

Acrylic Plastic: a lightweight, synthetic plastic available in different forms and colours that is used as a replacement for glass for framing, painting or sculpture

Art: An esthetically pleasing and meaningful arrangement of elements.

Artist: One who excels in one of the fine arts.

Bronze: An alloy of copper and tin used for sculpture from ancient times.

Brush Drawing: A work made in ink or wash with a brush, usually on paper

Canvas: A heavy, coarse, closely woven fabric of cotton, hemp, or flax on which a painting is made.

Cartoon: From the Italian word cartone, meaning cardboard. A full-scale drawing for a picture or design intended to be transferred to a wall, panel, tapestry,etc. Or a drawing, usually humorous or satirical, calling attention to some action or person of popular interest.

Carving: The cutting of a figure or design out of a solid material such as stone or wood, as contrasted with the additive technique of modeling.

Casting: A method of duplicating a work of sculpture by pouring a hardening substance such as plaster or molten metal into a mold.

Cast Iron: A hard, brittle iron, produced commercially in blast furnaces by pouring into molds where it cools and hardens.

Ceramic: Any of hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by firing clay or other minerals and consisting of one or more metals in combination with a non-metal, usually oxygen.

Chalk: Calcium carbonate, either natural or artificially prepared, finely ground to make a white substance used in gesso. It may be pressed in sticks and used in its white form, or mixed with colored pigments to make pastels.

Charcoal: Used for drawing and for preliminary sketching on primed canvas for oil painting. Natural vine charcoal is very soft and can be easily rubbed off with a soft rag. Natural willow charcoal is harder than vine charcoal and gives a darker line. Compressed charcoal is available in several forms-stick form, wood-encased pencils, and peel-as-you-go paper wrapped pencils. These charcoal formulations range from extra soft to hard. Powdered charcoal is used to transfer drawings to surfaces by dusting through "pounced" lines on the drawing

Chasing: A technique of ornamenting a metal surface using various tools.

Chiaroscuro: From the Italian for light and dark. In painting, it is a method of modelling form primarily by the use of light and shade.

Clay: A fine grained, firm, natural earthy material used in the making of pottery.

Collage: A composition made of cut and pasted scraps of materials, sometimes with lines or forms added by the artist. Conte Pencil: A non- greasy carbon pencil in red, black or brown usually used for preparatory work and very useful for landscapes and portraits.

Crafts: Objects made by hand with skill.

Drawing: A work in pencil, pen, and ink, charcoal, etc; usually done on paper.

Drypoint: A technique of intaglio engraving in which a hard steel needle is used to incise lines in the metal plate, with the burr at the side of the furrows retained.

Easel: A stand or resting place for working on or displaying a painting. A simple easel can be a tripod with a cross bar for the painting to sit on.

Egg Tempera: A painting medium in which pigment is mixed with water-soluble glutinous materials such as egg yolk. Also called poster color, poster paint. The term is applied especially to early Italian painting, common vehicles of which were yolk of egg, yolk and white of egg mixed together, the white juice of the fig tree, and so on.

Enamel: A colored glassy substance, opaque or translucent, applied in powder form to a metal surface and fused to it by firing. Two main techniques exist: "champleve" (from the French for raised field), in which the areas treated are dug out of the metal surface; and "cloisonne" (from the French for partitioned), in which compartments or "cloisons" to be filled are made on the surface with thin metal strips.

Engraving: A print made by cutting a design into a metal plate (usually copper) with a pointed steel tool known as a burin. The burr raised on either side of the incised line is removed; ink is then rubbed into the V-shaped grooves and wiped off the surface; the plate, covered with a damp sheet of paper, is run through a heavy press. The image on the paper is the reverse of that on the plate. If a fine needle is used instead of a burin, a drypoint engraving is produced.

Etching: A print made by coating a copper plate with an acid-resistant resin and drawing through this ground, exposing the metal with a sharp instrument called a stylus. The plate is bathed in acid which eats into the lines; it is then heated to remove the resin, and finally inked and printed on paper. The technique itself is also called etching.

Figurative Art : Representational art, wherein subjects however distorted, are inspired by the real world.

Fixative: A resinous or plastic spray used to affix charcoal, pencil, or pastel images to the paper. Used lightly it protects finished art (or underdrawing) against smearing, smudging, or flaking.

Flat Color: Any area of a painting that has an unbroken single hue and value.

Flat Wash: Any area of a painting where a wash of single color and value is painted in a series of multiple, overlapping stokes following the flow of the paint. A slightly tilted surface aids the flow of the washes. Paper can be dry or damp.

Folk Art: Traditional art originating among the people of a nation or region.

Foreshortening: A method of reducing or distorting the parts of a represented object which are not parallel to the picture plane, in order to convey the impression of three dimensions as perceived by the human eye.

Fresco: Italian word for fresh. True fresco is the technique of painting on moist plaster with pigments ground in water so that the paint is absorbed by the plaster and becomes part of the wall itself.

Frieze: A continuous band of painted or sculptured decoration.

Genre: French word for kind or sort. A collective term for works of art, usually paintings, capturing scenes from everyday life.

Glaze: A thin layer of translucent oil colour applied to a painted surface or its parts to modify the tone. Also, a glassy coating applied to a piece of ceramic work before firing in the kiln, as a protective seal and/or decoration.

Gouache: 1) Watercolor painting technique using white and opaque colors. 2) A water-based paint, much like transparent watercolor but made in opaque form. Traditionally used in illustration.

Gold Leaf: Gold beaten into very thin sheets or "leaves" and applied to illuminated manuscripts and panel paintings, sculpture, or the back of the glass tesserae used in mosaics.

Graphite: Soft carbon that has an iron-gray color and a metallic luster.

Handmade: Prepared by hand rather than by machine.

Highlight: A point of intense brightness, such as the reflection in an eye.

India Ink: 1. A black pigment made of lampblack and glue or size and shaped into cakes or sticks. 2. An ink made from this pigment.

Intaglio: The process by which the design is cut into or engraved on to the block of wood, metal plate etc, as opposed to relief.

Installation: A 20th century art form that emerged from sculpture, using elements from photography, the performing arts and happening or from assemblage. It is usually preserved through video recordings, and is often a reaction to traditional art and social oeuvres.

Kynkyny: An art space in Bangalore, India that is a platform for the work of emerging and established fine artists across different media and distinct styles.

Landscape Art: A style of painting in which elements of nature, rather than human figures or animals predominate.

Lithography: A print made by drawing a design with oily crayons or other greasy substances on a porous stone or, later, on a metal plate; the design is then fixed, the entire surface is moistened, and the printing ink which is applied adheres only to the oily lines of the drawing. The design can then be transferred easily in a press to a piece of paper. Invented in 1796.

Matting paper: A thick piece of paper used for protection or decoration, yet forming an aesthetic surround within the frame, through which the painting is visible.

Medium: The material or technique with which an artist works.

Miniature: A very small painting, especially a portrait on ivory, glass, or metal.

Model: The preliminary form of a sculpture, often finished in itself but preceding the final casting or carving. Also refers to a person who poses for an artist.

Mosaic: Decorative work for walls, vaults, ceilings, or floors, composed of small pieces of colored materials like tiles or stone set in plaster or concrete.

Mount paper : A thick piece of paper used for protection or decoration, yet forming an aesthetic surround within the frame, through which the painting is visible.

Mural: From the Latin word for wall, murus. A large painting or decoration either executed directly on a wall or done separately and affixed to it

Oil: In art, the medium for the pigments used in oil painting.

Oil Painting: A painting done in oil colours.

Oil Sketch: A work in oil painting done in an informal way, sometimes preparatory to a finished work.

Palette: A thin, usually oval or oblong board with a thumb hole at one end, used by painters to hold and mix their colors.

Panel: A wooden surface used for painting, usually in tempera and prepared beforehand with a layer of gesso. Recently panels of masonite or other composite material have come into use.

Painting: The process, art, or occupation of coating a surface, canvas or panel with paint.

Pastel: A color of a soft, subdued shade. Also a drawing stick made from pigments ground with chalk and mixed with gum water.

Perspective: A technique for representing spatial relationships and three-dimensional objects on a flat surface so as to produce an effect similar to that as perceived by the human eye.

Pigment: Colored substances found in organic and inorganic sources; many are now prepared synthetically. Pigment when finely divided and suspended in a liquid medium becomes paint, ink, etc. When suspended in a solid medium it becomes crayon, pastel, etc. Photography: The art of taking and printing photographs.

Print: A picture or design reproduced, usually on paper and often in numerous copies, from a prepared wood block, metal plate, or stone slab.

Relief: The projection of a figure or part of a design from the background or plane on which it is carved or modelled.

Rubbing: A reproduction of a relief surface made by covering it with paper and rubbing it with pencil, chalk, etc

Sculpture: The art or practice of creating forms, figures or designs in the three-dimensional or in relief, as by carving wood, chiselling marble, modelling clay, or casting in metal.

Sketch: Another word for drawing.

Stencil: A sheet of celluloid, cardboard, or other material in which a design has been cut so that when the ink or paint is passed over the sheet the pattern will be reproduced on the surface placed below.

Still Life: The representation of inanimate objects, such as flowers or fruit, in painting or photography.

Tempera Painting: A painting made with pigments mixed with egg yolk and water. It is applied to panels which had been prepared with a coating of Gesso.

Terracotta: Italian word for cooked earth. Refers to earthenware, naturally reddish-brown but often glazed in various colors and fired. Used for pottery, sculpture, or as a building material or decoration.

Wash: A thin layer of translucent color or ink used in watercolor painting and brush drawing.

Watercolor painting: Painting, usually on paper using colour pigments ground with water soluble gums.

Weaving: To make cloth by interlacing the threads of the weft and the warp on a loom.

Weft: The horizontal threads interlaced through the warp in a woven fabric.

Woodcut: A print made by carving out a design on a wood block cut along the grain, applying ink to the raised surfaces which remain, and printing from those. The spaces between the lines may be colored by hand, or as in the case with many Japanese woodcuts, by using separate blocks for one or more colors.

Wood engraving: A technique of engraving on a block of wood cut across the grain. Finely detailed prints result from this relatively rapid method.

Wrought Iron: A relatively pure form of iron which is easily forged and does not harden quickly, so that it can be shaped or hammered by hand in contrast to molded cast iron