MSCE Creative Arts cheat sheet

Pencil grades run from 9H (hardest, lightest line) through HB to 9B (softest, darkest); H grades suit precise technical line, B grades suit broad tonal work.

One-point perspective uses a single vanishing point on the horizon for lines receding straight from the viewer; two-point perspective uses two vanishing points for forms seen at an angle.

Tonal techniques include hatching (parallel lines), cross-hatching (crossed lines), stippling (clusters of dots) and scumbling (light scribbled marks).

Watercolour is transparent: pale washes are laid first and darker layers glazed over them; white highlights are left as unpainted paper rather than added as white paint.

Wet-on-wet watercolour produces soft, bleeding edges; wet-on-dry produces crisp, controlled edges with hard boundaries.

Acrylic paint dries quickly and thins with water; oil paint dries slowly and thins with turpentine or linseed oil.

Gouache and poster colour are opaque water-based paints that can be re-wetted and applied light over dark, unlike transparent watercolour.

Foreshortening compresses forms angled towards the viewer, so an arm pointing at the viewer is drawn much shorter than one held sideways.

Batik is a wax-resist process: melted wax is applied to cloth, dye colours the unwaxed areas, and the wax is later removed by boiling or ironing.

Crackle in batik comes from wax that cracks during dyeing, allowing fine dark veins of dye to penetrate the cloth.

Tie-dye resists dye by binding, folding or stitching the cloth; tight bindings leave pale rings where the dye cannot reach the fibres.

The three hand-building clay methods are pinch (thumb pot), coil (rolled ropes of clay) and slab (flattened sheets).

Clay pieces are joined at the leather-hard stage by scoring both surfaces and adding slip, a paste of clay and water.

Wedging kneads clay to remove trapped air pockets and equalise moisture before modelling, reducing the risk of cracking or exploding in the kiln.

Sculptural approaches are subtractive (carving away wood or stone), additive (modelling clay or wax) and constructional (assemblage of joined parts).

The design process runs: brief, research, initial ideas, development, final outcome, evaluation.

The staff has five lines and four spaces; the treble clef curls around the second line from the bottom, fixing that line as G.

In 4/4 a semibreve lasts four beats, a minim two beats, a crotchet one beat, a quaver half a beat and a semiquaver a quarter beat.

In a time signature the upper figure gives the number of beats per bar and the lower figure the note value that receives one beat; 6/8 is compound duple with two dotted-crotchet beats.

The order of sharps in key signatures is F C G D A E B; the order of flats is B E A D G C F.

A major scale follows the interval pattern tone–tone–semitone–tone–tone–tone–semitone.

C major has no sharps or flats, G major has one sharp (F sharp) and F major has one flat (B flat).

A triad is built from a root, a third and a fifth; a major triad stacks a major third then a minor third above the root.

Call and response, polyrhythm and ostinato (a repeated rhythmic or melodic figure) are central features of much African music.

Play structure follows exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action and denouement (resolution).

A soliloquy is delivered by a character alone on stage, revealing inner thought; an aside is a short remark to the audience that other characters do not hear.

Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows something that one or more characters do not, so their words carry a second meaning.

Stage directions, usually printed in italics or brackets, specify setting, entrances, movement, gesture and tone of voice.

Common theatre spaces are proscenium arch (audience on one side), thrust (three sides), arena or theatre-in-the-round (all round) and traverse (two opposite sides).

Blocking is the planned positioning and movement of actors; it must keep sightlines open and balance the stage picture.

Tragedy traces a protagonist's downfall, often through hamartia or a fatal flaw; comedy typically ends in reconciliation, marriage or restored order.

Stanislavski's given circumstances are the who, where, when and why of a scene; Brecht's alienation effect keeps the audience critical rather than emotionally absorbed.

The elements of dance are body (which parts move), action (travel, turn, jump, gesture, stillness), space, time and energy or dynamics.

Space in dance covers level (low, middle, high), direction, pathway, size of movement and group formation.

Time covers pulse, tempo, metre, rhythm, duration and pause; energy covers force and quality, such as sharp, sustained, swinging or percussive.

Choreographic devices include unison, canon, mirroring, retrograde, repetition, contrast, augmentation and diminution.

A warm-up raises muscle temperature and mobilises joints before demanding movement; a cool-down returns heart rate and breathing gradually towards resting levels.

Gule Wamkulu is a masked dance of the Chewa Nyau society, inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List in 2008.

Vimbuza is a Tumbuka healing dance of northern Malawi, inscribed by UNESCO in 2008; malipenga and beni are other well-known Malawian dance and drumming traditions.

The elements of art are line, shape, form, colour, value, texture and space.

The principles of design are balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, pattern, rhythm, unity and proportion.

Primary colours are red, yellow and blue; secondary colours (orange, green, violet) are mixed from two primaries, and tertiary colours from a primary and a neighbouring secondary.

Complementary colours sit opposite each other on the colour wheel and produce maximum contrast; analogous colours sit next to each other and harmonise.

Warm colours (red, orange, yellow) appear to advance towards the viewer, while cool colours (blue, green, violet) appear to recede.

Balance is symmetrical (formal and mirrored), asymmetrical (informal, unequal but compensating) or radial (radiating from a central point).

The rule of thirds divides the picture plane into nine parts; focal points placed on the intersections read as more dynamic than a centred subject.

Critical appreciation proceeds by describing what is seen, analysing how elements and principles are used, interpreting meaning, then evaluating the work.

Upper Palaeolithic cave paintings at Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain used earth pigments such as red and yellow ochre, charcoal and manganese.

Ancient Egyptian art uses a composite view, with the head in profile, a frontal eye and frontal shoulders, arranged in horizontal register bands.

Renaissance innovations include linear perspective, anatomical proportion, chiaroscuro (light–dark modelling) and sfumato (soft, smoky blending).

Impressionism, from the 1870s, favoured visible brushwork, light-filled colour, outdoor painting and everyday subject matter.

Cubism, developed by Picasso and Braque around 1907 to 1914, breaks forms into facets and presents several viewpoints within one image.

The Chongoni Rock Art Area in Dedza, Malawi, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 2006 for its rock paintings associated with BaTwa hunter-gatherers and Chewa farmers.

African masks and figure sculpture influenced early twentieth-century European modernists, including Picasso and the German Expressionists.