Media, Techniques, and Processes
What this domain tests
Identification of materials and processes, and the ability to infer technique from physical evidence such as plate marks, brush texture, or seams.
Core processes
- Drawing: graphite, charcoal, conté; hatching and cross-hatching build value.
- Painting: fresco (pigment in wet lime plaster; secco applied dry), tempera (egg binder, crisp edges), oil (slow drying, glazing, blending), watercolor (transparent washes), acrylic (fast, synthetic).
- Printmaking: relief (woodcut, linocut); intaglio (engraving, etching, drypoint, aquatint) with ink in incised lines and a plate mark; lithography (planographic, grease on stone); screenprint (stencil through mesh). Editions, artist's proofs, and cancellation.
- Sculpture: subtractive carving, additive modeling, assemblage, casting (lost-wax bronze), construction.
- Photography, ceramics, glass, textiles, and digital media.
Worked example
A black-and-white print shows fine, swelling lines with a soft edge and a rectangular indentation around the image. Reasoning: the plate mark indicates intaglio. The swelling line suggests etching, because acid bites lines of varying width; engraving produces crisper, more uniform burin lines. A woodcut would show gouged white lines and no plate mark.
Traps
Treating lithography as intaglio (it is planographic); confusing fresco with secco; calling any reproduction a "print"; and forgetting that casting is indirect while carving is subtractive.