Special Exhibitions
French Master Drawings
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Special Exhibitions |
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French Master Drawings |
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Glossary of Drawing Terms BLACK CHALK A naturally occurring composite of carbon and clay that can be cut and sawed into a stick and sharpened to a point for use as a drawing instrument.BLACK INK An ink prepared by incorporating a black carbon pigment derived from soot or charcoal into water mixed with a binding agent, usually gum arabic. Often the terms "India Ink" or "Chinese Ink" are used to refer to black ink, because dry ink sticks made with carbon pigment mixed with gum and resin, and hardened by baking, were imported into Europe from the East as early as the 1500s. BROWN INK The brown inks we associate today with old master drawings are generally one of three types: bistre, sepia, or iron gall. BISTRE INK is made by boiling or soaking wood soot in water to extract the soluble tars; this liquid is then filtered and results in a transparent and luminous ink, the exact tone of which depends on the kind of wood used. SEPIA INK is made from the dried ink sacs of cuttlefish and squid, which are ground up, mixed with water, and then processed into dried cakes. The term "sepia" is often misused as a synonym for the brown ink of old master drawings, which may in fact be bistre or iron gall. IRON GALL INK is naturally a purplish-black, but with time and exposure to light, it changes to a brown color. Its essential ingredients include plant tannins extracted from gall nuts, to which are added iron salts and gum arabic. This ink has a natural acidity whose corrosive effect on paper can often be seen in old master drawings. CHARCOAL Made by slowly heating bundles of twigs in an airtight chamber to produce charred wood instead of ash. The resulting charcoal sticks produce a grayer line than black chalk, one that can also be more easily erased and manipulated. Often it is difficult to tell the difference between black chalk and charcoal with the naked eye. CRAYON Colored pigments combined with oily, fatty, or waxy binding media and made into sticks. GOUACHE Also referred to as bodycolor or opaque watercolor, gouache is a type of watercolor made opaque by the addition of white pigment or chalk used with a binding agent such as gum arabic. (See also Watercolor.) GRAPHITE A crystalline form of carbon that can be sharpened into a stick and used for drawing. Although known since the 1500s, graphite did not become common in drawings until the 1700s. Graphite is generally grayer and smoother than black chalk or charcoal, and produces a line with a soft metallic sheen visible in raking light. Early on, graphite was confused with lead and is still today commonly referred to as "lead," "lead pencil," or simply "pencil." GUM ARABIC The natural secretion of the acacia tree which is used as a binding agent in many liquid media. It improves the bonding properties of the ingredients in inks and watercolors, enabling them to stick to paper, and it helps to maintain a stable dispersion of pigment particles in water as the film of wash dries. (See also Watercolor.) HATCHING One of the basic ways an artist builds up form through purely linear means: the artist makes closely spaced parallel lines with a drawing instrument, usually pen and ink or chalk, in order to create areas of tone. In Cross-Hatching, the artist adds another set of lines in the opposite direction, creating a gridlike, diamond-shaped pattern. METALPOINT A stylus of silver, gold, copper or some other soft metal is used to draw on the surface of a sheet of paper specially prepared with a ground, whose texture picks up the metal, producing a fine line. It is not always possible to identify the metal used, but if so, one uses the more specific term of silverpoint, goldpoint, etc. PAPER The most common support used by artists for drawing, paper is made from plant fibers, usually derived indirectly from rags, beaten and turned into a soupy pulp (slurry) which is then scooped into a mold with a wire screen, drained, and then dried on felt into individual sheets. There are two main types of paper in the West: laid and wove, and the main difference is the type of screen used to strain the liquid paper pulp. LAID PAPER is made using a mold covered with wires to form a distinctive grid pattern of "laid lines"-horizontal wires placed closely together, and "chain lines"-more widely spaced vertical wires. This pattern transfers to the final sheet of paper and becomes and essential identifying feature. WOVE PAPER, not widely used until 1790, is made using a fine wire mesh that distributes the pulp more evenly than laid paper and typically does not impart a strong pattern to the paper. Most modern artist's papers of today are wove paper. PASTEL Made by blending dry, powdered pigments with a non-greasy, water-soluble binding medium, traditionally a plain gum. The resulting paste is then usually rolled into a stick and dried. Pastels were first used at the end of the 1400s, but they became especially popular in the 1700s and have their own tradition as a medium. A wide spectrum of colors is possible with pastel, and they were often collected and displayed more like paintings than drawings. In the 1800s, pastels were commercially manufactured much as they are today. The term "colored chalk" is often used interchangeably with pastel. PEN Three basic kinds of pen were used before the 20th century: quill, reed, and metal nib. Most old master drawings with pen are in quill pen, an instrument made from the scraped and cut feathers of birds. Reed pen, made from hollow reed grass, is much less common and produces a shorter, blunter stroke than the more durable and versatile quill. Metal nib pens were not widely used until the 1800s, when advanced techniques for manipulating steel were available. RED CHALK A naturally occurring clay that gets its red color from iron oxide (hematite). Like black chalk, it is cut into sticks and sharpened to a point for use as a drawing instrument. SQUARING To facilitate the transfer or enlargement of a design from a drawing to another surface, artists often placed a grid of lines over the design in a process known as squaring. The drawing could then be copied square by square to the transfer surface, which was squared with an identical, appropriately scaled grid. STUMPING The artist uses a tightly rolled piece of paper or leather, known as a stump, in order to rub chalk, charcoal, graphite, or pastel and achieve subtle shading and tonal effects. STYLUS A point made of metal used to make linear indentations in the support surface. Artists sometimes use a stylus to make preliminary sketches, or to incise an existing drawing to help aid in its transfer to another surface. WASH A general term usually used to refer to diluted ink applied with a brush; washes can also be made of chalk or colored pigments mixed with water. In the case of watercolor, "wash" means the application of a broad layer of color by a continuous motion of the brush. WATERCOLOR is a water-soluble paint composed of finely-ground pigment particles and a gum binder such as Gum Arabic. When mixed with water, the tiny fragments of color form a stable dispersion and thus become distributed evenly across the paper before drying. Watercolor is typically characterized by its brilliant and luminous effects. This occurs because the medium's translucent nature allows the underlying white paper to show through the paint film and reflect light back to the viewer. (See also Gouache.) VELLUM A very durable support prepared from the skin of a sheep, goat, or calf. The term is often used interchangeably with "parchment." Artists sometimes use a type of imitation vellum made from specially treated paper whose smooth surface was similar to the real thing. ©The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001 Page 6 of 6 | On the next page: Collecting French Drawings in Cleveland |
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