UPMSP High School Painting flashcards
UPMSP High School Painting · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Elements of art
- The basic visual components used to build any artwork: line, shape, form, space, texture, value and colour. They are organised by the principles of design.
- Asymmetrical balance
- A composition balanced by unequal visual weights rather than mirroring. A large pale area may be balanced by a small dark or textured shape placed further from the centre.
- Negative space
- The empty or surrounding area around and between subjects. Giving it deliberate shape strengthens the positive form and prevents a crowded, confusing composition.
- Value scale
- A graded strip of tones from white to black, usually in ten steps. It is used to check and match the lightness or darkness of any colour in a painting.
- Contour drawing
- A drawing made with a single continuous line describing edges and overlaps without lifting the pencil. Blind contour means looking only at the subject, never the paper.
- Gesture drawing
- A rapid study of thirty seconds to two minutes that captures the action, weight and line of action of a figure, omitting detail in favour of overall movement.
- Cross-hatching
- Shading built from two or more sets of parallel lines crossing at angles. Denser and more crossed lines produce darker tone, giving an illusion of volume.
- Two-point perspective
- A perspective system with two vanishing points on the horizon line, used when a box or building is seen at a corner rather than face-on.
- Pencil grades
- H pencils are hard and give light lines; B pencils are soft and give dark lines; HB sits between. Use 2H for construction, 2B to 6B for shading.
- Complementary colours
- Pairs opposite each other on the colour wheel: red and green, yellow and violet, blue and orange. Mixed, they neutralise toward grey-brown; side by side, they intensify each other.
- Tint, shade and tone
- A tint is a colour plus white, a shade is a colour plus black, and a tone is a colour plus grey or its complement, reducing intensity without greatly changing hue.
- Simultaneous contrast
- The effect where a colour appears changed by its surroundings. Grey looks warm beside blue and cool beside orange; a colour looks lighter on dark ground.
- Warm and cool colours
- Reds, oranges and yellows read as warm and appear to advance; blues, greens and violets read as cool and appear to recede. This underlies aerial perspective.
- Optical colour mixing
- Placing small separate dabs of colour so the eye blends them at a distance, as in pointillism. It differs from physically mixing pigments on the palette before painting.
- Ajanta cave paintings
- Buddhist murals in Maharashtra dated roughly from the 2nd century BCE to the 6th century CE, painted with earth pigments on prepared plaster, showing courtly and devotional scenes.
- Mughal miniature painting
- Court painting of the Akbar and Jahangir era, marked by fine brushwork, flat perspective, portraiture, hunting and garden scenes, and richly decorated borders.
- Madhubani painting
- A Mithila tradition from Bihar using double outlines, dense filling of space and motifs of fish, lotus, bamboo and sun, traditionally painted by women on walls and paper.
- Warli painting
- A Maharashtra tribal art using white rice paste on a red-brown ground, with figures built from triangles and circles and scenes of daily and ritual life.
- Pahari painting
- Hill-region schools of the Punjab hills such as Basohli and Kangra, known for delicate line, cool colour and lyrical Krishna themes; Basohli features large expressive eyes.
- Bhimbetka rock art
- Prehistoric paintings in Madhya Pradesh made with natural red and white pigments, depicting hunting, dancing and animal figures on shelter walls and ceilings.
- Renaissance art
- European art from roughly the 14th to 16th century that developed linear perspective, anatomical study and chiaroscuro, with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo as reference figures.
- Impressionism
- A French movement from about the 1870s painting outdoor light and atmosphere with broken brushstrokes and visible colour, generally avoiding black in shadows.
- Cubism
- A movement led by Picasso and Braque that breaks objects into multiple viewpoints and reassembles them on a flat plane; analytic phase is monochrome, synthetic phase uses collage.
- Baroque tenebrism
- A Baroque technique of dramatic light against deep shadow, combined with diagonal composition and emotional intensity, associated with Caravaggio and Rembrandt.
- Watercolour behaviour
- Transparent paint diluted with water that dries lighter than it appears when wet. White paper is reserved for highlights instead of adding white pigment.
- Gouache
- An opaque watercolour containing chalk or white, drying matte and slightly lighter. It allows light colours to be painted over dark ones, unlike transparent watercolour.
- Fat over lean
- An oil painting rule that later layers must contain more oil than earlier ones. Applying lean paint over fatty layers causes cracking and poor adhesion.
- Acrylic paint
- A fast-drying, water-thinnable paint forming a plastic film. It can be used thinly like watercolour or thickly as impasto, and brushes must be cleaned before the paint dries.
- Brush types
- Soft hair brushes suit watercolour washes, stiff bristle brushes suit oil and acrylic impasto, flat and hake brushes make broad washes, and round brushes make detail and line.
- Rule of thirds
- A composition guide dividing the picture into a three-by-three grid. Placing the focal point near an intersection is generally more dynamic than dead-centre placement.
- Leading lines
- Lines within a composition, such as roads, rivers or edges, that guide the viewer's eye toward the focal point instead of out of the frame.
- Depth cues
- Ways of showing space on a flat surface: overlapping, relative size, placement higher or lower on the picture plane, atmospheric fading and perspective convergence.