Vocabulary used in Mx. Vittie’s Classrooms:

Abstract expressionism: an artistic movement of the mid-20th century comprising diverse styles and techniques and emphasizing especially an artist’s liberty to convey attitudes and emotions through nontraditional and usually nonrepresentational means

Abstract: existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence. Also, to extract or remove something.

Acrylic Paint: a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based but become water-resistant when dry.

Additive: method involving adding material to an object to create

Adhesive: also known as glue, cement, mucilage, or paste

Aesthetics: a set of principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art

Appearance: the way that someone or something looks.

Appropriate: take (something) for one’s own use, typically without the owner’s permission.

Armature: simple inner skeleton usually made of metal, wire or wood, to support exterior material such as modeling clay, clay bodies, paper mache, plaster, etc.

Art Deco: also called style moderne, movement in the decorative arts and architecture that originated in the 1920s and developed into a major style in western Europe and the United States during the 1930s.

Artist Statement: is an artist’s written description of their work to give the viewer understanding.

Assemblage: a work of art made by grouping found or unrelated objects.

Asymmetrical: See Symmetrical

Audience: the spectators or listeners of the work (or the intended group of viewers).

Balance: the use of artistic elements such as line, texture, color, and form in the creation of artworks in a way that renders visual stability.

Bat: a round, flat disc used for a base to throw clay using a pottery wheel. It May be made of plaster, wood, plywood, Masonite

Bauhaus: literally translated to “construction house”—originated as a German school of the arts in the early 20th century, and became an art movement.

Bisqueware: a piece of unglazed clay, pottery, or sculpture, that has been bisque fired to Cone 04

Bone Dry: unfired clay which is warm (not cool or damp), dry, and dusty/chalky in feel. Ceramic ware needs to be bone dry prior to bisque firing whereby the physical (free) water has evaporated.

Broom: a tool used to sweep up dust/ fragments

Carve: to cut with care or precision.

Cast: method of building an object by pouring a fluid material into a mold and then it sets up/becomes hard. The mold is removed and the object holds that shape. Materials used may be plaster, clay slips, bronze, waxes, rubbers, resins, and other synthetics

Celluclay: Paper-based sculpting material

Center: the process for taking a ball of clay and making it perfectly round in the center of a pottery wheel before proceeding to make it into a vessel.

Ceramics: the art and science of objects made from earth materials containing or combined with silica with the aid of heat or the process of making these objects

Clean: to rid of dirt, impurities, and mess

Cognitive: of, relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity (such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering)

Coils: Rolled, snake-like ropes of clay, joined together to build pots.

Color Field: a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s.

Colour: Color is the element of art that is produced when light, striking an object, is reflected back to the eye.

Comment: a verbal or written remark expressing an opinion or reaction.

Composition: the way in which different elements of an artwork are combined. In general, this refers to the key subjects of the artwork and how they are arranged in relation to each other.

Compress: Squishing the particles of clay together. (For slab, use a plastic or metal rib drawn over the surface, at a flat angle, repeatedly, in one direction, then perpendicularly to that direction.) This “tightens” the surface of the slab, makes it easier to work with and lessens warpage.

Cone Down/ Cone Up: a process of molding the clay into the shape of a cone on the wheel. Coning mixes the clay and homogenizes it, working out inconsistencies and air bubbles that wedging may have missed.

Constructivism: an early twentieth-century art movement founded in 1915. Abstract and austere, constructivist art aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space.

Contemporary: the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century.

Contrast: simply defined as difference. Differences between art elements like color, value, size, texture, and so on can intensify the elements used. As a result, the elements used in a work of art can become more powerful.

Craftmanship: the quality of design and work are shown in something made by hand; artistry.

Cubism: an early 20th-century style and movement in art, especially painting, in which perspective with a single viewpoint was abandoned and use was made of simple geometric shapes, interlocking planes, and, later, collage

Cultural Appropriation: is the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from minority cultures.

Cutting Wire: A tool used to slice through large pieces of clay.

Dadaism: a movement with explicitly political overtones – a reaction to the senseless slaughter of the trenches of WWI. It essentially declared war against war, countering the absurdity of the establishment’s descent into chaos with its own kind of nonsense.

Dashboard: a type of graphical user interface which provides at-a-glance views of key performance indicators (main menu area to make changes in Edublog).

de Stijl: a body of work from 1917 to 1931 founded in the Netherlands; they simplified visual compositions to vertical and horizontal, using only black, white, and primary colors.

Distortion—misrepresenting and pulling out of shape any part of an image

Divi Builder: a drag and drop builder plugin for WordPress (easy visual Edublog editing)

Duct Tape: (also called duck tape, from the cotton duck cloth it was originally made of) is cloth- or scrim-backed pressure-sensitive tape, often coated with polyethylene. Typically waterproof.

Dustpan: a flat handheld receptacle into which dust and waste can be swept.

Edublog: this is a blog created for educational purposes.

Elaboration—embellishing or adding detail to part or all of an image

Embed: fix (an object) firmly and deeply in a surrounding mass.

Emboss: carve, mold, or stamp a design on (a surface or object) so that it stands out in relief.

Emotional: relating to a person’s emotions.

Emphasis: used to attract a viewer’s attention to the focal. the point, or main subject, of an artwork. For example, in a portrait the artist usually wants you to see the subject’s face first, so the artist will use color, contrast, and placement to direct where your eye is attracted.

Exaggeration—over-emphasizing or intensifying a portion or aspect of an image

Expressionism: a style of painting, music, or drama in which the artist or writer seeks to express emotional experience rather than impressions of the external world.

Fauvism: a style of painting with vivid expressionistic and nonnaturalistic use of color that flourished in Paris from 1905 and, although short-lived, had an important influence on subsequent artists, especially the German expressionists.

Figure: a person’s bodily shape

Fire: the heating of clay or glazed ware in a kiln or open fire to bring the clay or glaze to maturity.

Flux: a ceramic oxide or mineral that is added to a glaze, clay body, or underglaze to lower the maturing (or melting) temperature.

Food safe: Making ware that is safe to eat or drink out of

Form: An element of art that is three-dimensional and enclosed. volume; includes height, width, AND depth (as in a cube, a sphere, a pyramid, or a cylinder). Form may also be free flowing.

Forum: a place, meeting, or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.

Fragmentation—detaching, isolating, or breaking up part or all of an image

Free association: Free association is a technique originally devised by Sigmund Freud. In free association, the client is invited to let their mind roam without censorship or structure and to naturally make random connections between thoughts; creating a narrative or stream of consciousness.

Functional: describes an object that will be used for some activity, usually refers to physical activity. An object to be used and not as an object of contemplation.

Futurism: artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city.

Gesture:  a movement of part of the body, especially a hand or the head, to express an idea or meaning.

Glaze: a thin layer of glass fused to the surface of fired clay. Glaze can be smooth or textured, shiny or dull finished, and may be colored by a variety of oxides/carbonates. The raw unfired glaze never looks like what it will look like fired.

Graffiti: refers to images or text painted usually onto buildings, typically using spray paint.

Green waste: any organic waste that can be composted. Unfired clay can go in the green waste bin.

Greenware: refers to any state of raw/unfired clay. Including wet, leather-hard, and dry/bone dry.

Grog: A gritty, sandlike substance. Grog is added to clay bodies for strength, texture, and/or tooth. It reduces cracking and warping. It is made from grinding up fired clay.

Hand-build: forming clay shapes by hand (without a wheel) by pinching, coiling, slabbing, molding, or combinations of these techniques.

Hashtag: a word or phrase preceded by a hash sign (#), used on social media websites and applications, especially Twitter, to identify digital content on a specific topic.

Homepage: is the main web page of a website

Hump Mold/ Slump Mold: hump molds are convex pottery shapes and slump molds are concave. Hump molds are better if you are adding handles to your work afterward.

Ideate: To generate ideas

Impressionism: a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, unusual visual angles, and inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience.

Incise: Surface decoration made by scratching, cutting, or carving lines into clay at various depths.

Inlay: Surface decoration created by filling an impression in a clay surface with another clay or slip.

Intent: intention or purpose.

Juxtaposition—placing like or contrasting images or elements side-by-side in a way that changes the meaning or effect of each

Kiln Wash: a thin coating of refractory material (usually alumina and kaolin) applied to kiln shelves, the bottoms of kilns, and other “hot face” surfaces to protect them from glaze drippings and to reflect heat.

Kiln: an insulated fireproof box, usually a brick-lined oven into which heat is introduced by combustion (fuel fired) or by radiant energy (usually electric) designed for firing ceramic ware. Kilns come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, some permanent and some portable.

Land art: often the materials of the Earth, including the soil, rocks, vegetation, and water found on-site, and the sites of the works were often distant from population centers. Though sometimes fairly inaccessible, photo documentation was commonly brought back to the urban art gallery

Leather hard: a stage in the drying process of clay when it becomes stiff but still flexible, but is still damp enough to be joined to other pieces. The name is akin to the description of shoe leather and clay at this stage may also be carved, incised, engraved, planed, and trimmed/turned. It can also be said that its consistency is similar to hard cheese.

Line: an identifiable path created by a point moving in space. It is one-dimensional and can vary in width, direction, and length. Lines often define the edges of a form. Lines can be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, straight or curved, thick or thin.

Link: a relationship between two things or situations, especially where one thing affects the other (digitally a URL/ web address, to find a specific site or page)

Magnification—increasing the apparent size of some or all of the elements in an image

Masking Tape: adhesive tape is used in painting to cover areas on which paint is not wanted.

Media: plural form of medium. Can also refer to digital content such as images and video.

Medium: refers to the substance the artist uses to create a piece of artwork.

Menu: a list of commands or options, especially one displayed on the screen.

Metamorphosis—changing an image from one form to another

Metaphors: visual metaphor is a representation of a noun through a visual image that suggests a particular association or similarity. Visual metaphors are commonly found in film, television shows, photography and even commercial ads to create meaning out of objects and symbols.

Minification—decreasing the apparent size of an image

Minimalism: the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials, or identity of a subject by eliminating all non-essential forms, features, or concepts.

Moral Rights: a provision within copyright law intended to protect the author’s association with the creative work. Moral rights can be divided into two overarching categories: rights of attribution and association and rights of integrity.

Motif: a decorative design or pattern.

Multiplication—reiterating or restating part or all of an image

Naturalism: a style and theory of representation based on the accurate depiction of detail.

Negative Shapes: In drawing and painting, negative spaces are actual shapes that share edges with the positive shape — the object or objects you are drawing or painting — thereby creating the outline of your subject

Neoclassicism: the visual arts began in c. 1760 in opposition to the then-dominant Rococo style. Rococo architecture emphasizes grace, ornamentation, and asymmetry; Neoclassical architecture is based on the principles of simplicity and symmetry, which were seen as virtues of the arts of Rome and Ancient Greece, and was more immediately drawn from 16th-century Renaissance Classicism.

Nonobjective: relating to abstract art (not of any identifiable objects).

Op art: works are abstract. Typically, they give the viewer the impression of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibrating patterns, or swelling or warping.

Packing Tape: It consists of a pressure-sensitive adhesive coated onto a backing material which is usually a polypropylene or polyester film which is oriented to have strength in both the long (machine) direction and the cross direction. Often clear/ transparent.

Page: on World Wide Web- file notated with the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Usually, it contains text and specifications about where images or other multimedia files are to be placed when the page is displayed.

Paper Mache: French for “chewed-up paper,” a technique for creating three-dimensional objects, such as sculptures, from pulped or pasted paper and binders such as glue or plaster.

Papier Colle: the technique of using paper for collage.

Pattern: In art, a pattern is a repetition of specific visual elements.

Pencil Crayon: a pencil containing a coloured marking substance; coloured pencil

Permalink: a URL that is intended to remain unchanged for many years into the future, yielding a hyperlink that is less susceptible to link rot.

Permanent Marker: A permanent marker or indelible marker is a type of marker pen that is used to create permanent or semi-permanent writing on an object. In general, the ink comprises a main carrier solvent, a glyceride, a pyrrolidone, a resin, and a colorant making it water resistant. It is capable of writing on a variety of surfaces from paper to metal to stone.

Personification—giving human characteristics to nonhuman forms

Perspective: usually refers to the representation of three-dimensional objects or spaces in two-dimensional artworks. Artists use perspective techniques to create a realistic impression of depth, and ‘play with’ perspective to present dramatic or disorientating images.

Photo-box: a box that allows light to enter in a controlled manner. Subjects can be placed and arranged in the box and photographed.

Picture Frame: a frame for holding a picture.

Picture Plane: in perspective, the imaginary plane corresponding to the surface of a picture, perpendicular to the viewer’s line of sight.

Plastic Stage: a characteristic typical of unfired clay when it is moist, soft, pliable, and capable of being formed, manipulated, or easily molded, and still maintains its shape without cracking or sagging.

Plugin: also called add-on or extension, computer software that adds new functions to a host program without altering the host program itself.

Point of view—positioning the viewer physically relative to the created image

Pop art: art movement that emerged in the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid-to-late-1950s. The movement presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular and mass culture, such as advertising, comic books, and mundane mass-produced objects.

Porous: having minute spaces or holes through which liquid or air may pass.

Positive Shapes: the area or part of an artwork’s composition that the subject occupies. For instance, the positive space could be a vase of flowers in a still-life painting, a person’s face in a portrait, or the trees and hills of a landscape.

Post: to publish (something, such as a message) in an online forum (such as an electronic message board)

Post-modernism: a body of art movements that sought to contradict some aspects of modernism or some aspects that emerged or developed in its aftermath. Cultural production manifesting as intermedia, installation art, conceptual art, deconstructionist display, and multimedia, particularly involving video, are described as postmodern.

Potter’s Wheel/ Wheel: a device with a flat circular revolving head mounted on a vertical shaft propelled manually, by hand, or foot (kick), or motorized, usually electric incorporating a variety of drive mechanisms of which there are numerous types, designs, and shapes.

Pottery: loosely applied to all objects (wares) made of fired clay. It includes factory-produced dinnerware as well as artistically reinterpreted industrial forms, sculpture, and hand-produced utilitarian/functional ware. As its root “pot” suggests, it is mainly applied to containers/vessels.

Press (foam) Mold: any form used to press clay into, to use to repeat the texture or shape.

Principles of Design: The principles of design are the rules a designer must follow to create an effective and attractive composition.

Proportion: a design principle in art that refers to the relationship of two or more elements in a composition and how they compare to one another concerning size, color, quantity, degree, setting, etc.; i.e., ratio.

Prototype: a product built to test ideas and changes until it resembles the final product. You can mock up every feature and interaction in your prototype as in your fully developed product, and check if your idea works.

Publish: prepare and issue for public sale, distribution, or readership

Realism: In its specific sense realism refers to a mid-nineteenth century artistic movement characterized by subjects painted from everyday life in a naturalistic manner; however the term is also generally used to describe artworks painted in a realistic almost photographic way.

Reclaim: unfired clay can be re-used by slaking down and remixing and wedging

Remodernism:  Remodernism revives aspects of modernism, particularly in its early form, and follows postmodernism, with which it contrasts. In 2000, an attempt to introduce a period of new spirituality into art, culture, and society to replace postmodernism, which they said was cynical and spiritually bankrupt.

Renaissance: a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries.

Repetition: a recurrence of a particular line, pattern, shape, or other visual elements in a single or part of the series. The production of something which is repetitive yet at the same time exciting is a challenge, as many consider the recurrence as boring and still.

Reversal—turning inside out, inverting, transposing, or converting to the opposite an effect in all or a portion of an image

Rhythm / Movement: Rhythm refers to the movement or the visual flow within a certain piece. It is sometimes also referred to as a tempo or a beat created that invites the eye to enter into the journey of the artist’s soul displayed on the canvas or to help the eye travel and reach its point of focus.

Rib: Rib and scraper tools are essential for pottery and other ceramic work, aiding in the shaping and smoothing of clay. Though most often used when throwing pieces on a wheel, ribs can also be used in other clay practices.

Rolling Pins: used for rolling out clay.

Romanticism: term in use by the early nineteenth century to describe the movement in art and literature distinguished by a new interest in human psychology, expression of personal feeling and interest in the natural world.

Rotation—revolving, moving, or rearranging an image or parts of an image

Sand: to smooth or dress by grinding or rubbing with an abrasive (such as sandpaper)

Sandpaper: paper with sand or another abrasive stuck to it, used for smoothing or polishing woodwork or other surfaces.

Scolacell: Adhesive paper mache paste glue

Score: making scratches, usually in a cross-hatch pattern, with a knife, needle or serrated tool and using slip, to help make two pieces (coils, slabs, handles, etc.) of clay adhere to each other.

Scotch Tape: transparent adhesive tape (typically small)

Sculpt: create by shaping stone or wood or any other hard material

Seam: The crack formed where two pieces of clay are joined.

Sensory: relating to the senses or sensation. Transmitting impulses from sense organs to nerve centers; afferent.

Serialization—repeating multiple variations of an image in connection with each other

Sgraffito: In ceramics, a technique where clay is coated with a colored slip which is carved through to expose the clay. Actually, any coating that is scratched through to expose the background.

Shape: An element of art that is two-dimensional, flat, or limited to height and width.

Share: to distribute on the Internet.

Simplification—making an image less complex by the elimination of details

Sketch: To draw out quickly or loosely.

Slab: Rolled flat sections of clay. Wet slabs can be draped over or into forms or rolled around cylindrical or square forms. Slabs may be cut into shapes and joined together using the score and slip method. This is most successful when slabs are dried to the leather-hard state.

Slats: pieces of wood used with a rolling pin to help make slabs of clay a consistent thickness

Slip: clay that is mixed with enough water to be as fluid as cream or as thick as yogurt. Uncolored slip is used to attach together unfired and moist clay pieces to create functional and non-functional art. Colored slip has ceramic coloring oxides added and is used to decorate. Other liquids similar to colored slip are underglaze and engobe. These can be commercially manufactured or made by hand.

Slump Mold: a rounded form, usually plaster, but not always, used with clay to create a shape in that form.

Social realism: a theory or practice (as in painting) of using appropriate representation and symbol to express a social or political attitude

Space: the area around and within objects, forms, colors, and lines.

Sponge: wipe, pat, clean, and texture with a ceramic sponge. A must-have tool for cleaning dried pieces, smoothing wet clay, sopping up extra water on your piece, wiping down your workspace, and dabbing on the glaze.

Stain: any oxide, carbonate, or prepared pigment (sometimes fritted) used for coloring clay bodies, slips, glazes, underglazes, or overglazes. Also, sometimes used interchangeably with the term “wash.”

Stamp:  Any object that can be pressed into clay and create texture or design. May be made of plaster, wood, bisque clay, or found object.

Stilt: a high-temperature metal or porcelain support used to hold glazed ware above the kiln shelf during low-temperature firings. A piece of kiln furniture.

Style: Style is basically the manner in which the artist portrays his or her subject matter and how the artist expresses his or her vision. Style is determined by the characteristics that describe the artwork, such as the way the artist employs form, color, and composition, to name just a few.

Subject Matter: Subject matter in art refers to the topic or focal point that an art piece is built around. This may be a person, still life, landscape, building, or other foundational elements. It’s important to understand the subject matter of a piece of art to understand the meaning of the piece of art overall.

Subtractive: material is removed or carved out

Surrealism: a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself.

Symbols: In art, a symbol is usually a solid, recognizable thing—an animal, a plant, an object, etc. —that stands for something that would be hard to show in a picture or a sculpture. A force of nature, for example, or an idea. A symbol can also stand for someone’s whole story.

Symmetrical: Symmetrical balance (or Symmetry) means that the work of art is the same on one side as the other, a mirror image of itself, on both sides of a center line. Asymmetrical balance (or Asymmetry) means that the two halves of the work of art are different, however, try to create balance.

Tag: a string of text (such as the symbol @ followed by a person’s username) that is used to tag a person or account in a social media post

Technique: a way of carrying out a particular task, especially the execution or performance of an artistic work or a scientific procedure.

Tempera Paint: a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk.

Texture: the feel, appearance, or consistency of a surface or substance.

Throw: the hand forming of hollow shapes out of plastic clay on a revolving pottery wheel head.

Thumbnail sketch: Thumbnail sketches are quick, abbreviated drawings, usually done very rapidly and with no corrections. Thumbnail sketches usually are very small, often only an inch or two high.

Tooth: a gritty texture of a clay body due to added grog or sand or other filler. It is rough before and after firing, as compared to smooth porcelain.

Topic: a matter dealt with in a text, discourse, or conversation; a subject.

Traditional: existing in or as part of a tradition; long-established.

Trim/ Turn: the final action in the throwing process. A leather hard wheel thrown form is inverted onto the potter’s wheel head and a foot ring is carved into the bottom or base of the form utilizing specialized tools and also to remove excess clay.

Trimming Tools: a specialized tool to remove excess clay

Tuck Tape: This is a tape used to seal seams and edges of sheet-based moisture barriers. Often looks RED.

Underglaze: usually refers to pigments, applied to raw or bisque clay, that are normally covered with a glaze, such as commercial liquid underglazes like AMACO, chalks/crayons, and pencils. May also describe the technique of application of pigments such as washes.

Unity: Unity refers to how different elements of an artwork or design work come together and create a sense of wholeness. It can be achieved through proximity, simplicity, repetition, and continuation. Art and Design. Principles of design.

Upload: transfer (data) from one computer to another, typically to one that is larger or remote from the user or functioning as a server.

URL: A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a unique identifier used to locate a resource on the Internet. It is also referred to as a web address.

Value: defines how light or dark a given color or hue can be. Values are best understood when visualized as a scale or gradient, from dark to light.

Variety: the principle of art that adds interest to an artwork. Variety works through juxtaposition and contrast. When an artist places different visual elements next to one another, he/she is using variety. Straight lines next to curvy lines add variety.

Vessel: a hollowed-out form often used as a container for liquids or dry materials.

Viewer: someone who looks at a picture, photograph, or piece of art.

Visual Culture: an interdisciplinary notion that constitutes the visual as a precursor for knowledge and understanding.

Ware: generally used to describe any clay object in the green, bisque, or glazed state.

Watercolour Paint: artists’ paint is made with a water-soluble binder such as gum arabic, and thinned with water rather than oil, giving a transparent color.

Wax Resist: Melted paraffin or a synthetic wax solution. It is a liquid substance painted or dipped on ceramic art to resist water-based liquids such as glazes, slips, or stains. Wax is often applied to the entire bottom of ceramic art to help keep glaze from the bottom before firing.

Wedge: a process by hand where clay is mixed, cut & slammed, and “kneaded” to eliminate air pockets, made smoother, denser, and homogenous.

White Glue: Polyvinyl acetate (PVA, PVAc, poly(ethenyl ethanoate)), commonly known as wood glue, PVA glue, white glue, carpenter’s glue, school glue, or Elmer’s glue in the US, is a widely available adhesive used for porous materials like wood, paper, and cloth.

Wire Cutters: a tool for cutting wire.

Xacto Blade: a blade mounted on a pen-like aluminum body, used for crafting and hobbies, such as model making.