UPMSP High School Art (Drawing) flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Contour line

A line that follows the visible outer edge of a form. It defines silhouette only, not volume, and is usually drawn with a confident, unbroken stroke.

Cross-contour line

A line that wraps around a form like a wire frame, describing its curvature and volume. Unlike a contour, it passes across the surface rather than along the edge.

Foreshortening

The visual compression of a form that points toward the viewer. Its axis shortens and overlaps itself while cross-sections stay round, creating depth on a flat sheet.

Envelope in drawing

The smallest simple box or polygon that contains the whole subject. It is drawn first to fix overall proportion before any interior detail is added.

Rule of thirds

A composition guide that divides the picture into a three-by-three grid. Placing the focal object near an intersection gives a dynamic, balanced arrangement.

Ellipse in still life

The perspective view of a circle seen at an angle. Its curvature increases as the object's top approaches the viewer's eye level and becomes a straight line at eye level.

Atmospheric perspective

The effect of distance on appearance: contrast drops, edges soften, detail decreases and colour shifts toward the sky's blue-grey. It separates foreground, middle ground and background.

Negative sky holes

Gaps of sky visible between leaf masses in a tree canopy. Drawing them as shapes gives foliage texture and helps place the light side of the tree.

Landscape layering

Organising a scene into foreground, middle ground and background. The foreground carries the darkest values and sharpest detail; the background is lightest and softest.

Head unit method

Measuring a figure's total height in head lengths. An adult is about seven and a half heads; a child about five; an adolescent about six.

Face thirds

The division of the face into three roughly equal bands: hairline to brow, brow to nose base, and nose base to chin. The eyes sit at the head's vertical midpoint.

Contrapposto

A standing pose in which weight rests on one leg. The pelvis tilts one way and the shoulders counter-tilt, producing a natural S-curve through the body.

Horizon line

The line marking the viewer's eye level. In one- and two-point perspective all vanishing points lie on it, and it fixes how object surfaces are seen.

One-point perspective

A system where the front face of an object is parallel to the picture plane. All receding edges converge to a single vanishing point on the horizon.

Two-point perspective

A system where a vertical corner faces the viewer. Two sets of horizontal edges recede to two separate vanishing points on the horizon, giving a corner view.

Three-point perspective

A system used when looking up or down at tall objects. Verticals converge to a third vanishing point far above or below the horizon, in addition to the two side points.

Core shadow

The darkest zone on a form's shadow side, where the surface turns most steeply away from the light. It is darker than the reflected light nearby.

Reflected light

Light bounced onto the shadow side of a form from a nearby surface. It sits inside the shadow but is never lighter than the halftone on the lit side.

Cross-hatching

A shading technique using two or more sets of parallel lines at different angles. Value is controlled by line spacing, pressure and the number of layers.

Chiaroscuro

Strong contrast between light and dark used to model volume and drama. It is characteristic of many Renaissance and Baroque drawings and paintings.

Simultaneous contrast

The way a colour's appearance changes with its surroundings. A grey looks lighter on a dark ground and darker on a light ground, and picks up the neighbour's hue.

Tint, shade and tone

Three ways to modify a hue: a tint adds white, a shade adds black, and a tone adds grey. Each changes value and saturation while keeping the hue family.

Complementary colours

Hues opposite each other on the colour wheel, such as red and green. Placed side by side they intensify each other; mixed, they neutralise toward grey.

Split-complementary scheme

A colour plan using one hue plus the two hues adjacent to its complement. It gives strong contrast with less tension than a direct complementary pair.

Ajanta murals

Buddhist cave paintings in Maharashtra, made from about the second century BCE to the sixth century CE. They use lime plaster, earth pigments, contour and shading.

Mughal miniature painting

Court painting from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. It features fine brushwork, flat stacked perspective, high horizons and illustrated manuscripts such as the Akbarnama.

Bengal School

A late nineteenth and early twentieth century movement led by Abindranath and Gaganendranath Tagore. It revived Indian idiom and rejected academic European naturalism.

Madhubani painting

A folk art of Mithila, Bihar, using double-line outlines, dense filling with no empty space, natural pigments and themes of Ram-Sita, fish, lotus and weddings.

Warli painting

A tribal art of Maharashtra using white rice paste on a mud-brown ground. Figures are built from triangles, circles and lines, with no facial features.

Pattachitra

A cloth-based scroll painting from Odisha. It uses natural colours, fine black outlines and a black border, and depicts Jagannath and Krishna themes.

Kalamkari

A textile art of Andhra Pradesh using a kalam pen and vegetable dyes. The Srikalahasti style is hand-drawn; the Machilipatnam style uses carved blocks.

Portfolio in art practical

A mounted collection of a candidate's work, including still life, landscape, figure, perspective and colour studies plus a dated sketchbook. It is assessed in the sessional exam.