3rd. Edition Of Artist Technical Terms Explained!

by Anna Meenaghan

Sanguine can be a chalk or crayon which comes in a flesh colour, it can also be a reddish or blood red shade. The pigment has oxide contained in it and is usually made of clay or chalk. This can also be the name of a drawing done in this medium and is really the main colour in conte crayons. The description red chalk also refers to the shade.

Sandy Paste works pretty well when using pastels, as it spreads well. The texture of it is gritty and is a sandy coloured acrylic paste which makes for an interesting surface.

Scale – As an example, if I was to say I am drawing a quarter scale, my drawing would be a quarter of the size of the original drawing. Therefore, the scale is the ratio of dimensions of one object to another, so in art it is the ratio of your work in comparison to the original.

Triptych – Basically this is a set of three paintings which all relate to each other. They can be connected together or hung side by side. Sometimes they are, in fact, hinged together. The central work being the main subject with the other paintings flanking either side of it. These can be mounted on a sort of platform affair and sometimes they are like carvings.

Diptych – A set of two pictures which often can be united in the centre, or if you prefer it, they can be hung with a gap between them. Polytych, on the same theme, only with four or five works of art.

Automatic Drawing can be achieved with a pencil or brush. This is an interesting conception as this type of drawing really is drawing without thought. It is often called Automation and was favoured by surrealists as it afforded them more freedom in their work as non conformists.

Using this method spontaneously, as it were, strange pictures emerged which also tended to be what I would call Abstact Expressionist.

Graphite used to be called black lead years ago, but in essence, it is a form of greyish, black carbon. It, at one time, was used for writing and came in sticks with lumps on them. Clay and graphite makes up the pencils. Interestingly enough, even now, some pencils are named wrongly and are still reffered to as lead pencils.

Conte crayons are a mixture of clay with graphite. These have variants which will produce differences in the degrees of hardness. These crayons date back to the 18th Century.

The content is similar to chalk, has a slightly greasy feel to it and does not crumle much. These crayons are used for drawing and can be obtained in black, red and brown. Conte was a portrait painter when he was young and he invented the modern graphite pencils we now use.

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