Friday, March 20, 2009

Technical Artists Terms - 3rd. Edition!

By Anna Meenaghan

Sanguine is the main colour in Conte crayons. It too is the name of a drawing, if this is used as a medium. This medium can either be chalk or crayon, with the pigment containing oxide and actually made of chalk or clay. It is often called red chalk. Sanguine can be a reddish brown, flesh colour or a blood red in colour.

Sandy Paste is an acrylic paste which has a gritty texture and is the colour of sand. You can spread it and make an interesting type of surface which works well for drawing with pastels.

Scale really is the ratio of proportion or dimensions of one object compared to another. So if you are painting or even drawing, the scale would be the ratio of the composition to your original from which it was taken. As an example, the picture is drawn one third scale, it would be one third of the size of the original.

Triptych - Three paintings which have a connection. The largest one in the centre with a painting either side of this. Sometimes they are mounted on a type of platform, but they can also be hinged together or simply just be hung side by side. However, in some instances they are done with carvings.

Diptych - A set of two pictures which often can be united in the centre, or if you prefer it, they can be hung with a gap between them. Polytych, on the same theme, only with four or five works of art.

Automatic Drawing can be achieved with a pencil or brush. This is an interesting conception as this type of drawing really is drawing without thought. It is often called Automation and was favoured by surrealists as it afforded them more freedom in their work as non conformists.

Using this method spontaneously, as it were, strange pictures emerged which also tended to be what I would call Abstact Expressionist.

Graphite - I would say is like a grey black form of carbon. At one time it was used for writing in small lumps attached to a stick. Years ago it was named Black Lead, so even now some pencils are not named properly and are sold as lead pencils. The pencils really are a mixture of clay and graphite.

Conte Crayons go back to around the 18th Century. These crayons are made up of graphite and clay which has variances, which, in turn, can be used to create different degrees of hardness.

The content is similar to chalk, has a slightly greasy feel to it and does not crumle much. These crayons are used for drawing and can be obtained in black, red and brown. Conte was a portrait painter when he was young and he invented the modern graphite pencils we now use.

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