NZ Scholarship Visual Arts flashcards

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

Grid system

A structure of columns, margins, and baseline units that aligns elements across a layout. Modular and baseline grids control rhythm, while breaking the grid deliberately creates emphasis and tension.

Visual hierarchy

The ranked order in which a viewer reads elements, created through scale, weight, colour, contrast, and position. Effective hierarchy ensures the most important message is perceived first.

Legibility versus readability

Legibility is how easily individual letterforms are distinguished; readability is how easily continuous text is comprehended. Typeface, size, leading, and measure all affect readability in body text.

CMYK versus RGB

CMYK is a subtractive ink model used for print; RGB is an additive light model used for screens. Converting between them shifts saturated colours, so proofs are needed before print production.

Brand identity system

A coordinated set of components - mark, wordmark, palette, typography, imagery, and layout rules - that keeps an organisation recognisable across every format and application.

Wayfinding design

Signage and environmental graphics that guide people through a space using consistent typography, symbols, colour coding, and placement decisions informed by sightlines and decision points.

Impasto

Thickly applied paint that stands proud of the surface, retaining brush or knife marks. It catches light and emphasises the physical gesture of painting rather than illusionistic depth.

Glazing in oil painting

A thin, transparent layer of oil paint applied over a dried lower layer. Light passes through and reflects back, producing deep luminous colour; many thin glazes build richness gradually.

Notan

A Japanese-derived term for the light–dark structure of an image considered independently of colour. Reading notan reveals whether a composition holds together as a pattern of shapes.

Alla prima

Italian for 'at first attempt': a painting completed in one session while paint is wet, allowing direct wet-in-wet blending and spontaneous mark-making rather than layered indirect build-up.

Simultaneous contrast

The optical effect whereby a colour appears altered by adjacent colours. A grey looks warmer beside blue and cooler beside orange, so colour must be judged in context.

Underpainting

An initial layer establishing value structure or a coloured ground beneath subsequent paint. It guides later decisions and can show through thin passages, unifying the final surface.

Depth of field

The zone of acceptable sharpness in front of and behind the focused subject. It narrows with wider apertures, longer focal lengths, and closer focusing distances.

Exposure triangle

The interdependent relationship of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Changing one requires compensating with another to hold exposure constant while altering depth of field, motion, or noise.

Reciprocal rule

A guideline for handheld sharpness: the minimum shutter speed roughly equals one over the focal length. A 50mm lens suggests about 1/50 second; stabilisation and crop sensors modify this.

Colour temperature

A measure in kelvin describing light's warm or cool cast. Tungsten is around 3200K and daylight around 5500K; white balance tells the camera which to treat as neutral.

Histogram clipping

Data piled against either end of a histogram indicates lost shadow or highlight detail. Highlight clipping is usually unrecoverable, so exposure is biased to protect the brightest tones.

RAW versus JPEG

RAW stores minimally processed sensor data with wide editing latitude; JPEG applies compression and processing in camera. RAW suits post-production, JPEG suits immediate delivery.

Photographic series edit

The selection and sequencing of images so the body of work reads as a coherent argument. Consistency of approach, rhythm, and variation matter more than individual standout frames.

Intaglio printing

A family including etching, drypoint, and aquatint where ink sits in incised lines below the plate surface. Dampened paper and high press pressure pull the ink out.

Relief printing

A process where the non-image areas are cut away and ink sits on the raised surface. Woodcut and linocut are typical, producing flat shapes and visible gouge marks.

Lithography principle

Printing from a flat stone or plate based on grease repelling water. Greasy drawing holds ink while dampened non-image areas reject it, allowing fine tonal crayon effects.

Screenprint stencil

Ink forced through a mesh with a squeegee, blocked elsewhere by emulsion or paper stencils. It yields flat opaque colour and supports photographic imagery through photo-emulsion.

Registration

The precise alignment of successive colour layers or plates. Registration marks, pins, or jigs control it; visible misregistration is a deliberate or accidental quality in the final print.

Edition and artist's proof

A numbered set of identical prints, signed and titled in pencil below the image. Artist's proofs are impressions outside that numbered edition, usually retained by the artist.

Reduction print

A single block carved and printed in successive layers, with more cut away each time. Earlier colours cannot be restored, so the edition must be printed in one sequence.

Lost-wax casting

A wax model is encased in a refractory mould, the wax melted out, and molten metal poured into the cavity. Each casting destroys the mould, so the wax original is lost.

Armature

An internal framework, usually metal, supporting soft modelling material such as clay. It carries the weight of the mass and must be strong enough to prevent sagging or collapse.

Contrapposto

An asymmetric stance in which weight rests on one leg, tilting hips and shoulders in opposing directions. It gives the figure natural balance and implied movement.

Readymade

An ordinary manufactured object selected and presented as art, shifting meaning through context rather than craft. Duchamp's examples established the idea as a sculptural strategy.

Site-specific installation

Work conceived for a particular place, responding to its architecture, scale, light, or history. Meaning depends on location, and documentation becomes central when the work cannot travel.

Negative space in sculpture

The voids and gaps around and within a form, which shape how mass is perceived. Carving and construction both use negative space to create tension and define silhouette.