Abstract Art – One of the major forms of nonrepresentational and semi-representational art of the twentieth century. It began with Cubism in the second decade of the twentieth century and reached a peak about the middle of the century.
Abstraction – A term for the visual effects derived by the simplification and/or rearrangement of the appearance of natural objects, or nonrepresentational work arranged simply to satisfy artists’ needs for organization or expression. Abstraction is present in varying degrees in all works of art, from full representation to complete nonobjectivity.
Additive method – To add charcoal for a darker value.
Aesthetics – Of or pertaining to the criticism of taste, to the sense of the beautiful.
Approximate symmetry – The use of similar forms on either side of a vertical axis.
Arbitrary Value – Light and dark patterns that differ from local values, based on the artist’s intuitive responses and the need to comply with the demands of the design.
Artifacts – Objects made by human beings that are found and studied by archaeologists and historians from a later time to gain knowledge about a people and their culture.
Asymmetrical or informal balance – The use of dissimilar forms on each side of a vertical axis to achieve balance within the visual format. A type of balance attained when unequal visual units are placed in positions within the pictorial field to create a “felt,” or sensed, equilibrium.
Atmosphere – The gaseous mass or envelope surrounding a celestial body, especially that surrounding the earth.
Atmospheric or aerial perspective – The illusion of deep space produced by lightening values, softening contours, reducing value contrasts and neutralizing colors in objects as they recede.

Balance – A sensing of equilibrium in a work or art.
Bisque – A preliminary firing of unglazed ware which prepares the work for glazing.
Blind Contour – Keeping your eyes upon the subject you are drawing. Imagining that the point of your drawing tool is in actual contact with the subject.
Blurred Line – Lines that are smudged, erased or destroyed in some way.

Calligraphic Line – Animated lines of a rhythmic deliberate character.
Cast shadow – The dark tones resulting from the blocking of light rays by solid bodies; the dark area created on a surface when another form is placed so as to prevent light from falling on that surface.
Categories of Light – Highlight, light tone, shadow, core of shadow, reflected light, cast shadow.
Celedon glaze – A type of glaze originating in China that resembles jade.
Centering – To force the clay into the center of the wheel so that the clay is distributed evenly.
Ceramics – Any of various 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 nonmetal, usually oxygen.
Charcoal – A black, porous carbonaceous material produced by the destructive distillation of wood.
Chiaroscuro – A technique of representation that concentrates on the effects of blending the light and shade on objects to create the illusion of space or atmosphere.
Clarity – The composition and objects are organized in an obvious manner so that structure is apparent.
Classical – Art forms which are characterized by a rational, controlled, clear and intellectual approach.
Clay – Earthly materials formed by the decomposition of granite.
Clean wipe – Final wiping of an intaglio plate with the edge of the hand or paper to polish the entire surface as clean as possible.
Closed composition – Composition contained to picture plane not implying exterior activity.
Collage – Adhering real materials that possess actual textures to the picture plane surface, often combining them with painted or drawn passages.
Collagraph – Print made from a collage of various materials glued together on a cardboard, metal or hardboard plate.
Color – Color is inherent in the quality and quantity of light both reflected and absorbed by any object.
Complementary – Colors opposite on the color wheel, when mixed will create a neutral.
Composition – A putting together of parts or elements to form a whole; the manner in which such parts are combined or related; the result or product of composing.
Conceptual or Schematic Drawing – A drawing that in its essential form is conceived in the artist’s mind, rather than derived from immediate visual stimuli.
Constricted, Aggressive Line – Line that makes use of angular, crabbed, assertive marks. They convey the feeling of tension.
Contemporary – A person of the present age; a modern.
Continuous Line – Line that is unbroken from the beginning to the end. The drawing implement stays in uninterrupted contact with the surface of the paper.
Contrast – Extreme differences; a juxtaposition of dissimilar elements (as color, tone, or emotion) in a work of art.
Contour/Cross-Contour Line – A line that carefully follows the edges and inner surfaces of an object, thus indicating both boundary and volume.
Converge – To approach the same point from different directions.
Criticism – The act of making judgments.
Cross-hatching – Parallel lines that cross another set of parallel lines at an angle.
Culture – The behaviors, customs, ideas and skills shared and transmitted among a group of people.

Dominance/Emphasis – Giving unique visual weight to one or more areas in composition.
Dry point – 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.

Economy – The efficient and concise use of the elements of art.
Edition - Number of prints pulled from a plate.
Elaboration – Interesting fullness of detail, complexity, intricacy.
Elements of art – Irreducible rudiments basic to the process of making art or of designing an object. Includes point, line, shape, value, texture and color.
Eye line – An imaginary horizontal line that is parallel to the viewer’s eye.

Foreshortening - A technique for producing the illusion of an object's extension into space by contracting its form.
Frisket – A mask used to protect areas.

Gestural Approach to Drawing – A quick, all-encompassing statement of forms. In gesture the hand duplicates the movement of the eye, quickly defining the subject’s general characteristics, movement, weight, shape, tension, scale and proportion.
Gesture – The act of moving the limbs or body to show, to express or to direct thought.
Gesture Line – Animated lines of an empathic, spontaneous, quick, sketch-like character.
Glaze – A glassy coating especially formulated to fit over a clay form. Glazes contain silica, alumina, and melter.

Half Tone – (mid-tone) The third lightest value on a form.
Harmony – The result of causing each emphatic feature of an artwork to show visual connections with other features which causes them to be seen as integrated members of the whole; harmony involves rhythm and repetition.
Highlight – The lightest value on a form; the area of a represented shape that receives the greatest amount of direct light.
Hue – Used to designate the common name of a color (such as magenta, cyan, and yellow) and to indicate its position in the spectrum or on the color wheel. Hue is determined by the specific wavelength of the color in a ray of light.

Iconography – The study dealing with symbolic meaning of objects, persons or events.
Illusionism – The imitation of visual reality created on a flat surface of the picture plane by the use of perspective, light-and-dark shading, etc.
Implied Line – Lines we sense in an alignment of forms or in an alignment of edges.
Incise – To cut into.
Inlay – To set into a surface or ground material.
Intaglio – Method of printing in which ink is forced into incised lines or recessions on a plate, the surface wiped clean, dampened paper placed on top, and paper and plate run through an etching press to transfer the ink to the paper. Encompasses etching, engraving, aquatint, collagraph, and other techniques.
Intensity or chroma – The saturation or strength of a color determined by the quality of light reflected from it. A vivid color is of high intensity, a dull color of low intensity.

Kiln – A furnace or oven built of heat.

Leather-hard – A condition where moisture has evaporated, but the clay is not totally dry.
Light – Radiant energy or electromagnetic radiation capable of promoting the sensation of vision.
Light tone – The next lightest value on a form.
Line – An element of art represented by a moving point or the path of a moving point (a solid row of points or pixels) creating visual movement; that is, a mark made by a tool or instrument as it is drawn across a surface. It is usually made visible by the fat that it contrasts in value with the surface on which it is drawn.
Linearity – Emphasis on contour and form shape, clean outlines and clear figure-ground contrasts.
Linear perspective – A mechanical drawing technique for creating the illusion of a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface by employing a fixed eye level, a horizon line, and vanishing points toward which all parallel lines appear to converge.
Local Value – The natural or characteristic value of a shape that is determined by the shape’s normal color independent of any effect created by the degree of light falling on it.
Lyrical Line – Lines that are ornate and intertwined, that flow gracefully across the page. They reinforce a mood of lightness and gaiety.

Mass – A three-dimensional form or body that stands out from the space surrounding it because of difference in color, value, or texture; the physical bulk of a solid body of material. On a two-dimensional surface, mass is always an illusion created by the use of the visual elements in special ways to represent physical form.
Mass and Line Gesture – Combination of mass and line gesture, broad marks with variety of line.
Mass Gesture – Drawing medium is used to make broad marks, creates mass rather than line.
Monotype – Print pulled from a pointing on a non-absorbent plate, such as zinc, copper, or plastic. Usually one impression is made.
Movement – A principle of design represented by organizing the design elements in such a way that the quality of motion is achieved, represented, or suggested (as in a painting or sculpture).
Multiplicity – Objects are independent, not interlocked with each other or their ground.

Negative space – The areas around positive forms that share edges with the forms.

Open Composition – Composition suggests space and activity outside of the picture plane.
Organic – Pertaining to living organisms, flowing, curvilinear.
Organizational Line – Line that provides the framework for a drawing. Relates background shapes to objects, organize the composition and takes measurements.
Outline – A line that creates a boundary separating an area of space from its surrounding background.

Painterly quality – The use of paint to enrich a surface through textural interest. Interest is created by the ingenuity in handling paint for its intrinsic character.
Paper Collé – Scraps of paper having various textures are pasted to the picture surface to enrich or embellish areas.
Parallel – Being an equal distance apart at every point.
Pattern – The obvious emphasis on certain visual form relationships and certain directional movements within the visual field. Pattern also refers to the repetition of elements or the combinations of elements in a readily recognized systematic organization. Patterning is the simplest and most harmonious compositional structure. Patterning is considered a decorative art form, as it lacks compositional variety, expression, and meaning.
Picture plane – The actual flat surface on which the artist executes a pictorial image. In some cases the picture plane acts merely as a transparent plane of reference to establish the illusion of forms existing in a three-dimensional space.
Pinch pot – A clay pot made by forming with the fingers.
Plane – A shape that is essentially two-dimensional but whose relationships with other shapes may give an illusion of a third dimension.
Planear space – Space organized in a series of planes, foreground, mid-ground and background.
Perception – The process or act of taking notice of.
Perpendicular – At right angles to the horizontal: vertical.
Perspective – A technique for giving an illusion of space to a flat surface.
Point – A unit or individual detail that anticipates movement.
Positive form – The state in the artwork in which the art elements or their combination, produce the subject.
Primary – Red, blue and yellow, colors that cannot be made by mixing other colors.
Principles of art – The means used to organize the elements of art into a whole, including harmony, rhythm, repetition, variety, contrast, elaboration, balance, movement, proportion, dominance/emphasis, economy, space, unity and form.
Proportion – A sensing of harmonious relation of parts to each other or the whole.

Radial balance – A form of balance attained by organizing the visual units around a central point.
Recede – To move back or away from a limit, point or mark.
Recessional space – Space organized on a diagonal, non-planear plan.
Reflected Light – Light cast on a form after being reflected from another form.
Repetition – The use of the same visual element a number of times in the same composition. Repetition may accomplish a dominance of one visual idea, a feeling of harmonious relationship, an obvious planned pattern, or a rhythmic movement.
Romantic – Art forms which are characterized by an experimental point of view, spontaneity of expression and imagination.
Rhythm – A continuance, a flow, or feeling of movement achieved by repetition of regulated visual units; the use of measured accents.

Scale – The proportion used in determining the relationship of a representation to that which it represents.
Scribbled Line Gesture – A tight network of lines describing interior forms.
Scoring – To roughen up the surface of the clay.
Secondary – Green, orange, violet, made by mixing two primary colors.
Self-portrait – An image of one’s self.
Shade – A hue mixed with black to lower its value and its chroma.
Shape – A two-dimensional flat object or area which stands out from the space next to it because of a defined boundary or because of a difference of value, color, or texture.
Slip – A mixture of clay and water. Used as a viscous mixture to hold clay pieces together or can be applied to the surface for decorative effect.
Space – In 2-D art, illusions of depth throughout the picture plane; in 3-D art, measurable, physical mass.
Still Life – A group of inanimate objects.
Stippling – Marks laid down in small dots or dabs.
Subtractive method – To take charcoal away for a lighter value.
Sustained Gesture – Begins with a quick notation using mass, line and or scribbled gestures, then extends into a longer analysis and correction of subject.
Symbol – Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention; especially, a material object used to represent something invisible.
Symmetrical or formal balance – A form of balance achieved by the use of identical compositional units on either side of a vertical axis within the confining pictorial space, as in a mirror image.

Tertiary – The colors created by mixing a primary and an adjacent secondary hue; intermediate colors. Also, colors made of any mixture of the three primaries, such as “brown” or chromatic neutrals.
Texture – Relating to tactility, the surface character or “visual feel” of an object.
Thumbnail sketches – Small, quick drawings of the same subject, used as an aid in composition.
Tint – A hue mixed with white to raise its value and lower its chroma.
Toolbox – A place to store tools.
Tone – A hue mixed with gray to lower its value and its chroma.

Unity – The sense, in a work of art that all the parts are working together to make an orderly statement, that each element included is necessary, and that the artist’s intent and the artwork’s content are cohesive. An overall oneness exists in a work that has unity. The whole or total effect of a work of art that results from the combination of all component parts, including the assigned ratio between harmony and variety. A sense of order or unity is a basic aim of the process of making art.

Vagueness – The elements dominate and organization is not obvious.
Value – The relative degree of lightness or darkness given to an area by the amount of light reflected from it.
Vanishing point – A spot on the horizon where parallel lines converge.
Variety – The quality or state of having differing parts creating visual interest; variety involves contrast and elaboration.
Vessel – A hollow utensil used as a container.
Viewfinder – A device to look through to compose a picture.
Volume – A three-dimensional shape that exists in space. (On a flat surface the artist can only create the illusion of volume.)

Wedging – To force one part of a lump of clay into another; the clay is rolled into itself. This forces much of the air out of the clay and encourages uniform moisture content.
Whimsical Line – Line that is playful, appropriate for naïve, childlike subjects. More of a feeling than a technique.