TASC Art Studio Practice flashcards
TASC Art Studio Practice · Build recall with a focused review session.
33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Pigment
- The finely ground colorant that gives paint, ink, or dye its color. It is dispersed in a binder rather than dissolved, so it stays suspended in the medium.
- Binder
- The film-forming substance that holds pigment particles together and adheres them to a surface. Examples include linseed oil, gum arabic, egg yolk, and acrylic polymer.
- Fat over lean
- An oil-painting layering rule: each successive layer contains more oil and less solvent than the one below, so lower layers dry faster and the flexible top layer resists cracking.
- Gum arabic
- A water-soluble plant resin used as the binder in watercolor and gouache. It holds pigment in suspension and remains re-wettable after drying.
- Gouache
- An opaque watercolor made with gum arabic plus added white or a heavier pigment load. It dries matte and can be layered light over dark, unlike transparent watercolor.
- Acrylic polymer emulsion
- The water-based binder in acrylic paint. It forms a flexible film that dries quickly and, once cured, cannot be dissolved or re-wetted with water.
- Egg tempera
- A paint in which pigment is bound with egg yolk, usually on a gesso panel. It dries fast to a matte, durable film and is applied in thin, hatched layers.
- Gesso
- A ground applied to a support to seal it and create a tooth for paint. Traditional gesso is chalk or gypsum in animal glue; modern acrylic gesso is water-based.
- Support
- The physical surface or structure that carries a painting, such as canvas, linen, wood panel, paper, or board. It is usually sized or primed before paint is applied.
- Sizing
- A sealant such as rabbit-skin glue applied to canvas or paper to reduce absorbency and protect fibers from the binder. It sits beneath the ground layer.
- Mineral spirits
- A petroleum-derived solvent used to thin oil paint and clean brushes. It is volatile and flammable, so it requires ventilation and closed storage containers.
- Spontaneous combustion
- Ignition of oily rags without an external spark, caused by heat from slow oxidation of drying oils. Rags should be spread flat or sealed in a metal can.
- Local exhaust ventilation
- A hood or duct system that captures airborne dust, mist, or solvent vapor at its source before it reaches the artist's breathing zone.
- Silica hazard
- Crystalline silica dust from sanding clay, plaster, or dry pigment can cause silicosis. Wet sanding and local exhaust reduce airborne exposure.
- Hog bristle brush
- A stiff natural-hair brush that holds heavy paint and pushes thick oil or acrylic strokes. Its stiffness makes it suited to scumbling and impasto work.
- Sable brush
- A soft natural-hair brush with fine point and good spring, used for smooth oil glazes and detail. Synthetic equivalents are common for watercolor and acrylic.
- Impasto
- Paint applied so thickly that brush or knife marks stand up from the surface. It exploits the body of oil or acrylic and can be built up for texture.
- Scumbling
- A technique of dragging a thin, opaque or semi-opaque layer of light paint over a darker dried layer with a dry brush, leaving broken color and texture.
- Glazing
- Applying a thin, transparent layer of paint over a dried lower layer so light passes through it. Glazes deepen color and are most common in oil painting.
- Wash
- A thin, fluid layer of diluted paint, often used in watercolor or ink. It creates flat tone or soft gradients and dries lighter than it appears wet.
- Wet-into-wet
- Applying paint onto a surface that is still wet, so the new stroke blends with what is there. It produces soft edges and is common in watercolor and oil.
- Underpainting
- An initial layer that establishes value structure and composition beneath later color layers. It may be monochrome or a complementary color that influences the final result.
- Palette knife
- A flexible, trowel-like blade without a cutting edge, used to mix paint and to apply it in flat, impasto strokes. It is not the same as a painting knife.
- Value
- The relative lightness or darkness of a color, independent of hue. Value structure carries most of the readability of an image, so it is planned early.
- Hue
- The name of a color family, such as red, yellow, or blue, located on the color wheel. Hue differs from value and saturation.
- Saturation
- The intensity or purity of a color, meaning how gray or muted it is. Mixing a color with its complement lowers saturation toward neutral.
- Complementary colors
- Two hues opposite each other on the color wheel, such as red and green. Mixed as pigment they neutralize toward gray; placed side by side they create contrast.
- Simultaneous contrast
- A color appears shifted when surrounded by another color. A gray looks warmer on a cool ground and cooler on a warm ground, which affects judging mixed color.
- Atmospheric perspective
- Depth cue in which distant forms lose contrast, become lighter or bluer, and show less detail because of haze and distance through the atmosphere.
- Foreshortening
- Depicting a form along the line of sight so its length appears compressed. It creates the illusion of a form projecting toward or away from the viewer.
- Vanishing point
- In linear perspective, the point on the horizon where receding parallel lines appear to converge. A one-point setup has one such point; two-point has two.
- Armature
- An internal framework of wire or wood that supports a sculpture's modeling material. It carries weight and keeps the form from sagging during building.
- Maquette
- A small-scale preliminary model of a sculpture or installation, used to test proportion, mass, and placement before full-size construction begins.