Mediums and Techniques

Impasto

the process or technique of laying on paint or pigment thickly so that it stands out from a surface. is achieved by dabbing lumps of thick paint on the canvas with a knife.

Combined Arts

those whose mediums can be both seen and heard, and which exist in both space and time. These include the dance, the drama, the opera, and the movies. Along with music, these are also known as the performing arts, because each art work is apprehended as a "happening." Each requires time in which to occur. They depend for their continued existence on repeated performance.

Auditory or Time Arts

those whose mediums can be heard and which are expressed in time. These are music and literature.

Visual or Space Arts

those whose mediums can be seen and which occupy space. Types: • two-dimensional •three-dimensional

Arch-and-vault

• A fundamental construction system in architecture used to span the space between walls, piers, or other supports and to create a roof or a ceiling. • made with separate pieces of wedge-shaped blocks arranged in a semi-circle, locked by the keystone

Carving

• A method of subtractive sculpture • involves removing unwanted portions of the raw material • wood, stone, ivory

Cantilever

• A structure which is anchored at one end and can carry a load at the other end. • horizontal beam or slab

Serigraphy

• AKA silk-screen printing • multicolor stencil process • separate screen is used for each color

The Truss

• An assembly of structural members joined to form a rigid framework, usually connected to form triangles. • used in bridges, halls, where wide spaces must be spanned w/ very few interior support

Interior Design

• Concerned w/ selection of space & furnishing to make a livable area

Drypoint

• Intaglio printmaking process which is done with needlelike instruments. • burr or tiny curl of metal is left along the edges of the line by the tool drawn across the plate. • resulting image has finer lines and a velvety appearance produced by the dark ink caught in the burr

Study

• Made for the sake of learning how to draw • means of investigating a particular detail

Molding

• a method of additive sculpture • building the form using highly plastic material such as clay or wax • allows artist to rework his material

Cire-perdue

• aka Lost-Wax Method • core of clay is shaped roughly into the form of the finished work • covered with coating of wax (final modelling) • covered with plaster, then heated to release wax from inside • molten metal (usually bronze) is poured inside, outer mould is removed • requires less metal • stronger, lighter, easier to handle

Planographic Process

• aka surface printing • done from an almost smooth surface (made chemically or mechanically) • result: some areas will print, others won't

Architecture

• art or designing and constructing buildings which will serve a definite function

Lithography

• basis: grease repels water; fatty substances stick together • greasy crayon or pencil is used to draw on a special limestone or a zinc plate • fixed with an acid solution

Relief Printing

• cutting away a block of wood or linoleum the portions of the design that the artist does not want to show

Stencil Printing

• done by cutting designs out of special paper, cardboard, or metal aheet

Skeleton Construction

• employs reinforced concrete and steel • concrete poured while in semi-fluid state • steel rods are embedded in the concrete to make it strong enough

Relief Sculpture

• figures project from flat bg

Free-standing Sculpture

• in the round • can be seen from more than one position

Etching

• intaglio printmaking technique • drawing with a blunt needle on a metal plate that has been covered with a protective wax-like film the ground • an intaglio printmaking technique in which a metal plate is covered with an acid-resistant ground and worked with an etching needle to create an image.

Mobiles

• kinetic sculpture • arranged with wires and hung where they can move

Casting

• method of sculpture • faithfully reproduced in bronze or other metals the spontaneity achieved in the modelling process • begins with production of negative mould and covered with a mould of ceramic material in a way that a negative reproduction is created • fired then covered with metal or plaster to form the solid mass • then allowed to cool and solidify, then outer mould is removed

Fabrication

• method of sculpture • developed in the 20th Century bc of rising cost of materials and difficulty of acquisition • made with scrap metal • also an additive process (joining or fastening)

Drawing

• most fundamental skill needed in the arts • all designed objects are first visualized thru this

Post-and-lintel

• oldest of construction systems • uses 2 vertical supports (posts) spanned by horizontal beam (lintel) • used in most houses

Intaglio Printing

• opposite of relief printing • design is scratched, engraved or etched on a metal plate

Lashed

• organic materials for construction

Printmaking

• process in which an artist repeatedly transfers an original image from one prepared surface to another • involves the prep of a master image on a plate (wood, metal or stone)

Sketch

• shows general organization/design of a product being planned

Assemblage

• three-dimensional composition in which a collection of objects is unified in a sculptural work. • from the concept of collage • uses discarded materials

Mezzotint

• variation of the etching process • no acid used

Photography

• writing or drawing with light • a 3-step process

Gesso

* A combination of powdered chalk, plaster and animal glue used as a ground in tempera. • combi of gypsum (calcium sulfare dihydrate)

Sculpture

3D form constructed to represent a natural or imaginary shape

Finished work

A drawing that makes a complete finished statement. • in itself

Print

A graphic image that results from a duplicating process

Burin

A pointed tool used for engraving or incising.

Voussoirs

A wedge-shaped stone block used in the construction of an arch

Coller

French word meaning "to paste."

Gum arabic

Harden sap from the acacia tree.

Cartoon

Meant to be a basis for works like a tapestry or a relief print

Linseed oil

Oil applied to primed canvas

Encaustic

One of the early mediums, this is the application of a mixture of hot beeswax, resin, and ground pigment to any porous surface, followed by the application of heat to set the colors and bind them to the ground. When the surface cools, it is polished with a cloth. This gives the wax a soft luster that heightens its translucent quality.

Engraving

One of the most highly skilled methods of incising lines into a hard surface

High relief

Relief sculpture whose figures project to the extent of one half of their thickness or more, almost round

Acrylic

Synthetic polymer emulsions as binder are the newest mediums and the ones that are widely used by today's painters. They have many advantages. They combine the transparency and quick-drying characteristics of watercolor and the flexibility of oil. They are completely insoluble when dry, and they can be used on almost any surfaces. They can be applied thinly with a water-dipped brush or laid on in thick impastos with a knife. Unlike oil, they do not tend to crack, turn yellow, or darken with age. First used by artists in the late 1940s, their use has come to rival that of oil paints because of their versatility

Pigment

That part of the paint which supplies the color; is fine powder ground from some clay, stone or mineral, or extracted from vegetable matter, or produced by a chemical process. It is mixed with a binder.

Mosaic

This art is related to painting only because it creates pictures on flat surfaces. These are wall or floor decorations made of small cubes or irregularly cut pieces of colored stone or glass called tesserae. These are fitted together to form a pattern on a surface with plaster or cement

Binder

Usually a liquid, it allows the powder to be spread over the flat surface until it dries. This substance is called a "vehicle."

Turpentine

a high quality oil paint thinner and solvent. It is produced by distilling into a volatile pungent oil the resin secreted by any of several types of coniferous trees.

Resin

a natural substance secreted by plants (mostly trees), which is transparent to translucent yellow or brown, such as copal, rosin, and amber, used principally in lacquers, varnishes, inks, adhesives, synthetic plastics, and turpentine. Also, synthetic plastics, including thermoplastic materials such as polyvinyl, polystyrene, and polyethylene, and thermosetting materials such as polyesters, epoxies, polyurethane, and silicones that are used with fillers, stabilizers, pigments, and other components to form plastics.

Oil

a very flexible medium. Using a brush, an air brush, a palette knife, or even his bare hands, the artist can apply the paint thinly or thickly, as a transparent film or an opaque surface. Sometimes it is applied smoothly that we are not aware of the artist's brush strokes. A three-dimensional character is added to a painting by impasto.

Photogram

an image made by placing objects on photosensitive paper and exposing them to light to produce a silhouette

Tempera

are earth or mineral pigments mixed with egg yolk and egg white. Since the paint dries quickly, corrections are difficult to make. Thus, the artist using this medium must plan his design well. In the past, this was most often used for painting on vellum in the production of books. Now it is normally applied on wooden panels carefully surfaced with gesso, a combination of gypsum (calcium sulfate dihydrate, found in a variety of forms as natural deposits [such as alabaster], which when heated and deprived of its moisture forms the substance known as plaster of Paris) or chalk and gelatin or glue.

Landscaping

artificial arrangement of outdoor landscape objects to achieve a purely aesthetic effect

Stained Glass

developed as a major art when it appeared as an important part of the Gothic cathedral. It derives its effects from the variations in the light that shines through it. It is translucent glass colored by mixing metallic oxides into the molten glass or by fixing them on to the surface of the clear glass. The glass is then cut into shapes determined by the artist's design. These pieces are finally assembled into the desired image and held together by strips of lead. Because there is a very sharp division of lines and colors, it is very difficult to achieve much expressive detail in this type of windows. Big window panels are frequently supported further by iron rods placed in strategic positions.

Tapestry

fabrics into which colored designs have been woven. The weaver closely follows a pattern, the actual size of the finished work, which is placed under the warp threads on the loom. A shuttle is employed to weave each color thread used as a weft over the area where the color appears in the pattern

Gouache

is paint in which the pigment is mixed with a chalklike material. This material makes the paint opaque. Colors are usually applied and spread with brushes, but other tools can also used. The most common techniques for applying watercolor are called wet-on-dry and wet-on-wet, along with the dry brush techniques dry-on-dry and dry-on-wet. Colors can be removed while still wet, to various degrees by blotting.

Fresco secco

is painting executed on dry wall surfaces.

Fresco

is the application of earth pigments mixed with water on a plaster wall while the plaster is damp. Color then sinks into the surface and becomes an integral part of the wall. The image becomes permanently fixed and lasts as long as the wall exists.

Collage

picture or design created by adhering such basically flat elements as newspaper, wallpaper, printed text and illustrations, photographs, cloth, string, etc., to a flat surface, when the result becomes three-dimensional. Most of the elements adhered in producing majority of this are "found" materials. Introduced by the Cubist artists, this process was widely used by artists who followed, and is a familiar technique in contemporary art. was originally a French word

Painting

process of applying pigment on a smooth surface - paper, cloth, canvas, wood or plaster - to secure an interesting arrangement of forms, lines and colors. Nowadays almost anything may be used as a surface or ground.

Bas relief

slightly raised relief sculpture

Watercolor

tempered paint made of pure ground pigment bound with gum arabic (hardened sap secreted by acacia trees). Painters apply this medium in thin, almost transparent films. The surface of the paper then shows through, giving a delicate, luminous texture to the painting

Keystone

the center stone of an arch that holds the others in place