Glossary of Terms

Painting: The art of representing or depicting by colors on a surface; media may be acrylic, oil, watercolor.

Drawing: The art of representing by line, delineation without color or with a single color, a sketch, initial idea or study; an outline with shading and tone; media may be pen, pencil, charcoal.

Sculpture: The art of forming representations of objects in the round or relief, i.e., three dimensional; media may be stone, wood, clay, metal.

Pastels: The art of representing or depicting by use of a colored crayon made of ground and mixed pigments, chalk, water and gum.

Cibachrome Print: Archival type of print greatly extending the expected lifetime of a photograph.

Printmaking: A medium that always involves working on one material, i.e., a matrix (wood, metal, limestone, etc); the image made on the matrix is then transferred to another material-- usually a piece of paper.

Original print: Any image made directly from the matrix is an original print. An original print is the image on paper or similar material made via various processes: relief (woodcut, wood engraving), intaglio (engraving, etching, aquatint), lithographic or stencil (serigraph, silkscreen). Each medium has a special identifiable quality. More than one impression of each image is possible; therefore, "original" does not mean "unique."

Reproduction: Usually refers to a photographic/mechanically- reproduced version of an original work of art; the process and the surface are entirely different from printmaking.

Archival: In reference to paper and mats, acid free; using archival materials, colors remain vivid and paper doesn't yellow.

Proof: An impression taken at any stage in the making of a print.

Artists' proof or Printer's proof: Usually up to 10% beyond the numbered edition.

Edition: The number of impressions printed (e.g.,. 250 or 250,000, etc.) from the same plate; the edition numbers are under the print on the left, the top number being the print number, the bottom number being the total prints in the edition.

Limited edition: Once a certain number is run, the original plate is destroyed and no more will be printed.

Computer-Generated Original Print: A print produced by the artist using computer artwork or digitized images involving:

Scanning: the computer digitizing of drawn or photographic images.

Electric Drawing/Painting Tools: specialized computer-graphics tools used by the artist to create work directly on computers.

Applique: Cloth decoration cut out and sewn to a larger piece of cloth.

Dovetail joints: A fan-shaped tenon that forms a tight interlocking joint when fitted into a corresponding mortise.

Marquetry: Decoration made by inlaying pieces of material such as wood into a veneer surface.

Silk Screen: Stencil method in which ink is forced through a design-bearing screen of silk or other fabric onto the printing surface.

Stencil: A sheet of material in which lettering or design has been cut so that ink or paint applied to the sheet will reproduce the pattern on the surface beneath.