Glossary
This page is regularly updated with terms as I use them.
Ellipse: An ellipse is the shape of a flattened circle. When you are drawing cylindrical objects such as jars, cups or bottles, you will have to judge the width of the ellipse in order for the perspective to look right.
Figurative: Adjective used to describe art which shows a recognisable subject; opposite of abstract.
Graphics tablet: Input device which looks like a mouse mat and pen, but acts like a mouse. With a little practice, you can get used to drawing as if on paper, but have your line appear on the computer screen.
Hexadecimal: Argh, this is a bit too near maths for my liking. It refers to a code using a base of 16, composed of the numbers 0-9 and the letters A-F. But all you need to know as an artist is that the hexadecimal system is also used to define colours on the internet. As each colour is made of varying proportions of red, green, and blue, each of those is described in two figures/letters, making a string of six. F is the lightest (FFFFFF is white), while 0 is the darkest (000000 is black). Any combination of AF and 0-9 is possible.
Mail art: A movement in which artists sent duplicated or single pieces of work to others in a postal network, often associated with the fanzine scene. Here is the Wikipedia page on mail art.
Media: Plural of ‘medium’ - it just means materials, the things you use to draw or paint - paper, ink, cardboard, whatever.
Monoprint: Easy to guess if you know that ‘mono’ means ‘one’. This is a print that you create by drawing on a non-porous surface such as a shiny magazine page (or your own skin) and then pressing it down onto a piece of paper. Usually you can only get one print by this method, but you may squeeze out two or three increasingly faint impressions.
Proportion: Most often used in life-drawing, to describe the relational sizes of different body parts. For example, the head is usually a seventh of the height of the body, on average. Here is a good reference.
Stretching paper: The process of taping paper to a surface such as a drawing board or desktop and going over it with a wet sponge. This makes the paper expand, and, when dry, it is less likely to buckle when you apply water-based paints.
Thumbnail: A quick, small sketch which allows you to try out different compositions or ideas before commiting to your final piece.
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