Art Glossary & Real life FAQs

A Friendly Guide to Art Materials

Managing an art store or two, is the most satisfying of tasks. Just imagine engaging with smart, creative and intelligent people on a daily basis-each quizzing us on something new everyday. That in itself is enlightening, our knowledge base deepens and widens. So why shouldn't we share it with you?

This collection of terms and some definitions are drawn from our 10 years of running two art supply stores and meeting several customers who are at various stages in their respective art journeys.

Some queries are innocent-for instance a customer asked if she could use a kitchen knife instead of a palette knife! Many questions are outright technical, forcing us to seek out help from senior artists and teachers. This collection is from that body of experience and knowledge. Feel free to ask us more and help build this collection.

Acrylic paint

A water-based paint made with pigment and an acrylic binder. It dries relatively quickly and becomes water-resistant once dry. Since it dries quickly, blending is a challenge. Acrylic Retarders aid in keeping the open time longer (open time=time taken for the paint to dry). 

Archival

A term used for materials intended for long-term preservation. It isn’t a guarantee on its own; durability depends on the material, storage, and conditions. Often water colour paper, sketching papers are archival quality.

Binder

The ingredient that holds pigment particles together and helps them stick to a surface. Different binders give acrylic, oil, and watercolour paints their distinct characteristics. All paints-acrylic, oil or water colour are made from the same family of pigments. A yellow ochre oil tube will have the same pigment as an acrylic yellow ochre or water colour yellow ochre. The binders define what paint the pigment yields-water or acrylic or oil.

Blending

Combining colours to make new ones. Here’s something we tell customers often: the paint’s name doesn’t tell the whole story. Two tubes both called “blue” can mix very differently, because it’s the pigment inside that decides the result. We really love customers who use fewer colours in their palette, that tells us a lot about their inherent skill level.

Brushes

Made from various types of bristles, each has its own use. Natural rough hair derived from the animal hog, works best for oil-as it is the most viscous of paints. Acrylic and water are softer paints, hence soft bristles like taklon work well. But to each his own, every artist has a distinct inclination for a kind of brush. Some oil artists at our stores ask for smooth hair brushes, While a few acrylic artists use rough hair brushes to give a  gritty look to their paintings.

B in a HB pencil

2B or not 2B, if that's the question, then one should know what the B stands in a pencil. B is for blackness, just as H is for hardness, these two letters can make or break a graphite pencil sketch. The basics of when to use which pencil grade is taught very early in an art class. H & B pencils can be stacked upto 12 grades, each having its purpose in a sketch. Starting as a lone B,  is for blackness and goes upto 12B-which is the darkest.

Canvas

A woven fabric, commonly cotton or linen, used as a painting surface. It can be stretched over a frame, mounted on a board, or sold in rolls or bound as canvas pads. Conventionally canvases are used for acrylic and oil painting, with many artists using ink quite deftly. Now canvases are primed for water colour too.

Cartridge paper

The art student's first surface. A paper that's roughly 140-160gsm mildly coarse, off white. Most drawing sketch books are made out of cartridge paper. Why is it called cartridge?  In the 16th century, when armies were looking for a stiff paper to hold the gun powder so that soldiers could easily handle and load their muskets/rifle. The paper had to be stiff. Over time this stiff paper was adapted for sketching and drawing. The usage changed, but the name stuck. 

Charcoal

An intensely dark dry media used to make high contrast drawings on paper. Charcoal is one of the oldest media that artists have used to draw either in caves in pre-historic times or now on paper. Charcoal is made from burning soft woods like willow or guava twigs. Charcoal is now available in various forms-pencil, compressed, powder, willow and liquid charcoal. Each having its own characteristic intensity. 

Cold-pressed paper

Watercolour paper with a noticeable, moderately textured surface. It’s a versatile choice for washes and expressive brushwork. Why is it called cold pressed? When the pulp is poured over a sizing frame, the moisture content is very high. It is practically dripping wet. The paper is then rolled between two cold rollers to remove the excess water. The paper dries over a period of time in sunlight and develops a rough or coarse surface. Sometimes the surface is induced by layering the wet pulp with a templated fabric like jute or another cloth.

Colour mixing

Combining colours to create new hues or adjust their appearance. The result depends on the pigments involved, not just their colour names.

Dry brushing

Applying paint with a brush carrying very little moisture or paint, creating broken marks that catch the texture of the surface.

Fixative

A spray used to help reduce smudging in dry media such as charcoal, pastel, and pencil. Is it always necessary to use a fixative?  Yes most often, the dry media is a loosely bound product with very little or no ability to adhere(stick) to the paper that it is drawn on. It can be easily or accidentally shaken off. To prevent the 'falling' a fixative is used to keep the dry media in place. Do test it on a scrap first, because a fixative can slightly darken or change the look of your work.

Gesso

A preparatory ground that helps create a suitable painting surface. Acrylic gesso is commonly used on canvas and panels; suitability depends on the surface and paint. A gesso-ed canvas is also called a primed canvas. Most canvases sold in India are primed, unless requested otherwise. A primed canvas is good for acrylic or oil painting. Some artists apply a gesso again to achieve a smoother, grain free surface for finer details.

Glazing

Applying a thin, transparent layer of colour over a dry layer to alter its colour or create depth.

Gouache

A water-based paint traditionally known for opaque coverage and a matte finish. Traditional gouache can usually be reactivated with water; acrylic gouache behaves differently and generally cannot once dry.

Graphite

A media that all of us are familiar with from our school days. Those days we used a black and red Nataraj lead pencil to write. Though it was called lead pencil, the lead was always graphite-a smooth slippery form of carbon. Graphite pencils have evolved from the humble HB pencil to several grades in both Hardness and Boldness-the H & B of pencils. A student's first stepping stone into art begins with a set of graphite pencils which helps them learn the rudimentary aspects of shading, cross hatching, perspective, light play. 

Granulation

The textured, speckled effect created when some watercolour pigments settle unevenly into the paper’s surface.

GSM

Short for grams per square metre, a measure of paper’s weight per unit area. Higher GSM generally means heavier paper, but it doesn’t tell you everything about thickness, texture, or quality. Many customers ask for 300gsm paper for water colour. Some even ask if they can do a water colour on a 160gsm paper. 

Hot-pressed paper

Paper with a smooth surface, often chosen for fine detail, illustration, and pen work alongside watercolour.This paper follows the opposite process of how cold pressed paper is made. To make a hot pressed paper, the plate is heated to squeeze out or steam out the moisture from the pulp. The paper often comes out smooth as the water is expelled out.

Impasto

A painting technique that uses thick paint to create visible texture and raised brush or palette-knife marks.

Linen

A fabric for painting. Made from stem fibre of the flax plant, linen is as ancient as the Egyptians or even more. Linen is more expensive than regular cotton canvas.

Lightfastness

How well a colour resists fading when exposed to light. Check the manufacturer’s rating for each colour, as rating systems can differ. Look out for the blog page, a new blog will be posted on how to read a paint tube's label. Learn about transparency, light fastness, hues, fugitive colours and many seemingly technical terms but extremely useful to know. 

Masking fluid

A removable liquid used to protect areas of paper from paint, often to preserve highlights in watercolour. Test it first and follow the maker’s removal guidance.

Medium

Medium is the message. If art is the language of an artist to express themselves, then medium is the means of communicating that language. Oil, water, acrylic, charcoal, graphite and many more are the various language carriers. They speak several tones, but express creativity which is highly individualised, Each artist strives to be unique, using these media. 
Another medium can also mean the additive that is used by artists either in oil, acrylic to delay drying, give the paint more body or a glazed finish.

Mixed media

Artwork made using more than one type of material, such as paint, ink, pencil, and collage. Of late air dry clay has become popular to get the relief on paintings. Mixed media is best done on canvas or boards, walls which are rigid enough to hold the weight of the air dry clay or impasto or texture white. Mixed media can be on paper too, where the interplay between ink, water colour or pastels come out beautifully.

Oil paint

Paint made with pigment and a drying oil binder. It generally dries more slowly than acrylic, allowing longer working and blending time. Open time is long as opposed to acrylic. Instead of a retarder, a drying oil is used to hasten the drying process, so that a layer of painting can be over painted or further worked upon. Oil paint is a favourite amongst portrait artists where extensive underpainting, detailing and layering is required. Often misconceived as the toughest medium, oil in fact is the most forgiving. A mistake made today can be corrected decades later. 

Opacity

How strongly a paint covers what’s underneath. Opaque colours conceal more of the underlying surface than transparent colours.

Palette knife

A flexible, blunt-ended blade for mixing paint and for applying it. You can lay down broad strokes, crisp edges, or thick textured patches. Yes, it really is different from a kitchen knife. A palette knife is flexible and shaped so it won’t scratch your canvas or hold on to paint the wrong way.

Pigment

The fine coloured powder that gives paint, pencils, pastels and inks their colour. Pigments don’t change much from one paint type to another. What changes is the binder they’re mixed into. 

Sizing

A treatment applied to paper or fabric to control how readily it absorbs liquid. In watercolour paper, sizing helps regulate how water and paint interact with the surface.

Tooth

The surface texture that catches and holds drawing materials. Paper with more tooth can grip more pencil, charcoal, or pastel.

Transparency

How much an underlying surface or layer remains visible through a colour. Transparent paints are especially useful for layered effects and glazing.

Varnish

Everyone is in a hurry to buy a varnish. Liquid or spray. But does your painting really need it? When do you apply varnish? We hear these questions on a daily basis. First, most paintings require a coat of varnish, some may not. Oil and acrylic paintings have to be varnished at different times. Oil with its late drying time has to be varnished at least 3-4 weeks of proper drying. Acrylic can be varnished in a week. Liquid or spray? Its a matter of comfort, though highly textured work may require spray, which is a non-contact application. 

Wash

A thin application of diluted paint or ink over an area. Washes can be even, gradually change in strength, or blend between colours.

Wedges

Not the eating kind. Wedges are the thin slices of wood given with every readymade stretched canvas. These wedges -usually 4 in number- are used to tighten the canvas, if it begins to sag. The wedges have to be lightly hammered into the joint grooves at the corner of the canvas. The wedge once inserted will push the frame slightly outwards, in the process stretching the canvas and removing the sag.