Alla prima - (Italian for "at the first") technique. This is when a painting is completed in one sitting, with no underpainting. This technique is also known as "au premier coup". When an oil painting is completed in this way, there is no worry regarding different drying times of the paint layers, as in essence the painting contains just one paint layer.
Balance - In a work of art, the overall distribution of forms and colour to produce a harmonious whole.
Binder - A liquid medium mixed with powdered pigment to form a paint.
Bistre - A brown transparent pigment made by boiling beech-tree soot. (You could try this one yourself!).
Bleeding - The effect of a dark colour in art work seeping through a lighter colour to the surface. It is usually associated with gouache paint.
Blending - Smoothing the edges of two colours together so that they have a smooth graduation where they meet.
Bloom - A dull, progressively opaque, white effect caused by being kept in damp conditions. This term is also used to describe the effect caused in watercolour, by a wetter wash running into an existing damp wash. (Also called a cauliflower!).
Body Colour - Opaque paint, such as gouache, which is able to obliterate underlying colour. "Body" also refers to a pigment's density.
Casein - A milk-protein-based binder mixed with pigment to make paint.
Chiaroscuro (Italian for "clear-obscure") - Associated with oil painting, this term is used to describe the effect of light and shade in a painting or drawing, especially where strong tonal contrasts are used.
Cissing - The effect caused when a water-based paint does not wet the support enough to adhere effectively, or is repelled by the surface. Also known as crawling or creeping.
Cockling - Wrinkling or puckering of paper caused by applying washes onto flimsy or inadequately stretched surfaces.
Composition - The arrangement of elements of a painting or drawing.
Contre-jour. (French for "against daylight") - A painting or drawing where the light source is behind the subject.
Copal - A hard, aromatic resin, used in making varnishes and painting mediums.
Crosshatching - More than one set of close parallel lines that crisscross each other at angles. Used to model and indicate tone.
Dammar - A resin from conifer trees, used in making oil mediums and varnishes.
Dead colour - A term used for colours used in underpainting.
Diluents - Liquids such as turpentine, used to dilute oil paint. The diluent for watercolour media is water. Acrylics can be diluted with various acrylic gels and mediums.
Distemper - A blend of glue, chalk and water-based paint, used mostly for murals and posters, but also sometimes for fine-art painting.
Earth Colours - These colours, the umbers, siennas and ochres are regarded as the most stable natural pigments.
Encaustic - An ancient technique of mixing pigments with hot wax as a binder.
Fat - Used to describe paints which have high oil content.
Filler - In painting, the inert pigment added to paint to increase its bulk.
Film - A thin coating or layer of paint, ink etc.
Fixative - A solution, usually of shellac an alcohol, sprayed onto drawings, particularly on charcoal or pastel, to prevent them smudging.
Format - The proportions and size of a support.
Fresco - (Italian for "fresh"). A wall-covering technique which involves painting with water-based paints onto freshly applied wet plaster. Also known as buon fresco.
Fugitive colours - Pigment or dye colours that fade when exposed to light.
Gesso - A mixture, usually composed of whiting and glue size, used as a primer for rigid oil and acrylic painting supports.
Glaze - In painting, a transparent or semi-transparent colour laid over another, different colour to modify or intensify it.
Grain - The texture, ranging from coarse to fine, of canvas or wood. Also called the "tooth".
Grisaille - A monochrome painting in shades of grey, or a grey underpainting.
Ground - A specially prepared painting surface.
Gum Arabic - A gum, extracted from certain Acacia trees, used in solution as a medium for watercolour paints.
Hatching - A technique of modelling, indicating tone and suggesting light and shade in a drawing. Closely drawn sets of parallel lines are used in hatching. Crosshatching is when more than one set of parallel lines are drawn at angles to each other.
Hue - The name of a colour - red, blue, yellow etc, irrespective of its tone or intensity.
Impasto - A technique of applying paint thickly by brush, painting knife or hand, to create a textured surface. Also the term used for the results of this technique.
Imprimatura - A primary coat of diluted colour, usually a wash, used to tone down or tint a white canvas before painting.
Intensity - The purity and brightness of a colour. Also called saturation or chroma.
Key - Used to describe the prevailing tone of a painting. A predominantly light painting is said to have a high key. A predominantly dark painting is said to have a low key.
Landscape format - A painting or drawing that is wider than it is tall.
Lay figure - A jointed wooden manikin which can be moved into various poses. Useful for studying proportions and angles.
Lean - Used as an adjective to describe paint thinned with a spirit such as turpentine and which therefore has a low oil content.
Lightfast - A term applied to pigments that resist fading when exposed to sunlight.
Loom-state - Canvas that has not been primed or sized beforehand for painting.
Matiére - Paint
Medium - This term has two distinct meanings. Firstly it can mean the liquid in which pigments are suspended. For example, linseed oil for oil paint and acrylic resin for acrylic paint. (The plural here is mediums).
Secondly, the term is used to mean the material chosen by the artist to work in, for example, watercolour, pastel, inks. (The plural in this instance is media).
Mixed Media - This refers to the use of different media in the same picture. For example, inks, watercolour and wax crayon.
Mixed method - The process of using oil glazes on top of a tempera underpainting.
Mural - Sometimes referred to as wall painting. This word describes any painting made directly onto a wall.
Opacity - The covering or hiding ability of a pigment to obliterate an underlying colour. Opacity varies from one pigment to another.
