Increase Your WordPower

Occasionally I throw around words in my blog that may be as unfamiliar to you as they were to me when I first encountered them in my art studies. I thought I might highlight a few with their definitions and give you a leg up on your word power. It could come in handy someday...like at Trivia Night or working a crossword puzzle. Here goes... 

Chroma: the intensity and purity of a specific hue (the absence of adding white or gray to a pure hue)

​Alla Prima: beginning and finishing a painting in a single session (often using thickly applied paint)

Impasto: thickly applied paint

Pigment: dry powder derived from plant, earth, animals that can become paint when mixed with oil, water, or other medium

Opaque: not allowing light to pass through, not transparent

Transparent: allowing light to pass through  (allows previous layers of paint to show through)

Luminosity: the measure of glowing light, appearance of radiating or reflecting light

Grisaille (pronounced gri-Zay): French word for painting in monochrome shades of gray or brown

Chiaroscuro (Kee-ahr-uh-skyoor-oh): Italian word for painting in light and dark shades of the same color


​That is enough for now! We are in the doldrums of winter here in Tennessee and I must say it looks way more like Seattle than the South. I'm trying to keep a steady schedule in my studio, painting from photographs of sunnier days. Here are a few tidbits of the paintings in progress currently: