Abstract art is a genre that emphasises shapes, colours, and forms rather than depicting recognisable objects or scenes. It seeks to express emotions and ideas through non-representational means, allowing viewers to interpret the work subjectively.

This art form often breaks away from traditional artistic conventions, focusing on the subject’s essence rather than its literal appearance.

Prominent movements in abstract art include Abstract Expressionism and Cubism, which have significantly influenced modern art.

Visit the TATE website for a brief history of Abstract Art.

Good quality art supplies such as watercolour papers and matting boards are labeled as acid-free. Most paper and cardboard produced contains acid, which can lead to deterioration and aging, especially when exposed to heat and light.

This poses challenges for the creation, preservation, and exhibition of artwork.

However, manufacturers can neutralize the natural acids found in wood pulp during production to avoid these issues.

Art materials marked as Acid Free are designed to be archival, meaning they will last for many years if looked after properly.

A fast-drying paint made from pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylics can be diluted with water but become water-resistant when dry. They have a vibrant colour range and can be thick enough to apply with pallet knives to produce texture but can also be mixed with a pouring medium to make a more fluid consistency for use with paint pouring, applying washes and other creative techniques.

“Archival” refers to materials or practices related to the preservation and storage of artworks.

Archival Materials: These are materials that are acid-free, lignin-free, and designed to resist fading, yellowing, or deteriorating over time. For example, archival paper, canvas, inks, and adhesives are used to ensure that the artwork remains stable and does not suffer from environmental damage.

Archival Framing: This refers to the use of archival-quality materials for the matting, backing, and glazing when framing artwork. The purpose is to protect the artwork from exposure to light, humidity, pollutants, and other factors that could cause damage over time.

Archival Storage: This involves storing artwork in conditions that prevent damage, such as controlling temperature and humidity, and using archival-quality storage materials such as acid-free boxes and portfolios. Proper storage is crucial for the preservation of artworks, especially those made with delicate or light-sensitive materials.

Archival Prints: Archival prints are produced using high-quality, fade-resistant inks and papers. These prints are made to last for many years without significant colour shifts or degradation.

Assemblage is an artistic technique in which three-dimensional objects or fragments of objects are brought together and combined to create a new work. Where collage works with flat materials adhered to a surface, assemblage extends that principle into three dimensions, incorporating found objects, discarded materials, manufactured items or natural elements, either freestanding or mounted on a backing.

The term was coined by the French artist Jean Dubuffet in the 1950s to describe works that did not fit neatly into existing categories of sculpture or collage. The technique had, however, been explored earlier in the twentieth century, most notably by Pablo Picasso, whose constructed sculptures of the 1910s assembled everyday objects into new forms, and by the Dadaists, particularly Kurt Schwitters, whose Merz works incorporated rubbish, urban debris and discarded materials into complex layered constructions. The Surrealists also embraced assemblage as a way of creating unexpected, dream-like juxtapositions of unrelated objects.

Assemblage remains a widely used approach in contemporary art and is closely related to collage, mixed media and installation art, the distinction between assemblage and installation often being one of scale.

Learn more on the TATE website

The Italian phrase meaning "light-dark." It refers to the interplay of light and shadow that produces striking contrasts in visual art, such as in paintings and photographs.

Collage is an artistic technique in which fragments of paper, fabric, photographs, printed text, found materials or other flat elements are adhered to a surface to create a new composition. The word comes from the French coller, meaning to glue or to stick.

Collage can be used in a purely compositional way, building up an image entirely from found or cut elements, or as one layer within a broader mixed-media process, where adhered materials form part of a painted or drawn surface.

Although the practice of adhering materials to a surface has a long history across many cultures, collage as a recognised artistic technique emerged in the early twentieth century. It is widely associated with the Cubist experiments of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, who began incorporating newspaper clippings, sheet music and other printed matter into their work around 1912, a practice they called papier collé (pasted paper). The technique was quickly adopted and expanded by the Dadaists, Surrealists and Bauhaus artists, each of whom found in it a way to challenge traditional ideas about what a painting or artwork could be.

Collage is closely related to decoupage (the decorative application of cut paper to objects), photomontage (collage made specifically from photographic imagery) and assemblage (which extends the principle of collage into three dimensions using found objects).

Composition refers to how visual elements are arranged within an artwork. It involves the organisation of artistic components such as line, shape, colour, value, texture, form, and space. These elements work together to provide structure to the artwork and express the artist’s intentions.

Composition is not the same thing as subject matter. Every artwork, whether abstract or representational, possesses its own composition. Effective composition is crucial for a painting’s success. When executed well, it captivates viewers and guides their gaze throughout the piece ultimately focusing on the primary subject.

A piece of art consisting of two canvases or panels displayed close to each other. They often have one composition that flows from one canvas to the next.

Art that represents real-world objects or figures, often focusing on the human form. Unlike abstract art, figurative art seeks to depict recognisable subjects.

Gesso resembles white acrylic paint but has a thinner consistency. Once dry, it creates a firm surface with added rigidity. Used to prime the painting surface, giving it a slight texture that helps acrylic paint adhere better. Without gesso, paint would be absorbed into the canvas fibres.

Glassine is a smooth, semi-transparent paper with a naturally glossy surface, created through a process called supercalendering, in which the paper is pressed through a series of rollers under high pressure. This gives it an unusually tight grain, making it resistant to air, water and grease without the need for additional coatings or chemicals.

Traditionally used in bookbinding as an interleaving paper to protect fine illustrations and printed plates from contact with facing pages, glassine has a wide range of archival applications. It is commonly used to sleeve photographs, protect drawings and prints, wrap delicate objects, and line envelopes for archival storage. In a studio context, it is recommended for interleaving stored acrylic paintings, as it will not stick to or react with the paint surface. Acid free and archivally stable, it is considered a conservation-grade material.

A flexible means of attaching artwork to a wall without using nails or screws.

A rail or wooden skirting board is required to hang wires from. A moulding hook attaches to the rail and wires serve to link the rail to adjustable hooks that support your artwork. D-rings attached to the back of paintings, slip over the hooks.

This offers a quick way to hang a gallery style presentation and is ideal for anyone wishing to change their display of artworks regularly. Hooks and wires are often used by commercial galleries and exhibition spaces.

Installation art refers to large-scale, site-specific works that are designed to transform or engage with a particular space, whether a gallery room, an outdoor environment, or an unconventional setting such as a warehouse, public building or landscape. Unlike a painting or sculpture that exists as an individual object to be viewed from a distance, an installation typically surrounds the viewer, turning the space itself into part of the work.

Installations may incorporate almost any material or medium: light, sound, video, text, found objects, sculpture, scent, fabric, water or living matter. Some are permanent, but many are temporary, existing only for the duration of an exhibition before being dismantled. Some are recreated each time they are shown, with the space itself shaping how the work appears.

Well-known examples include Yayoi Kusama's mirrored Infinity Rooms, Olafur Eliasson's The Weather Project at Tate Modern, and Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds, also at Tate Modern.

Installation art is closely related to assemblage, performance art and site-specific art, and often overlaps with all three.

Lignin is a component found in wood pulp, which acts as a binding agent for the fibres. It increases the acidity of paper, leading to brittleness and yellowing over time, as seen in newspapers.

Lignin-free paper remains acid-free for an extended period, resulting in greater durability of paper and card based materials.

Eliminating lignin is an expensive procedure, but essential for artists materials such as watercolour papers and matting boards.

Picture matting refers to the process of placing a border or a ‘mat’ (usually made of cardboard) around a photograph, painting, or artwork before framing it. The mat serves both aesthetic and protective purposes.

1. Aesthetic Purposes:

• Framing Enhancement: A mat creates a visual space between the artwork and the frame, enhancing the presentation and drawing attention to the artwork itself.
• Colour Coordination:Mats are available in various colours and textures, allowing the mat to complement or contrast with the artwork, thus improving its overall appearance.
• Size Adjustment: Mats can help resize the artwork to fit a specific frame, especially if the artwork does not conform to standard frame sizes.
  
  2. Protective Purposes:
• Preventing Contact: The mat keeps the artwork from directly touching the glass of the frame. This prevents condensation or other factors from damaging the artwork over time.
• Preservation: Archival-quality mats, made from acid-free materials, help preserve the artwork by preventing discoloration and deterioration that can occur with exposure to certain chemicals or environmental factors.
  
  

Mixed-media refers to any artwork that combines two or more different materials or media within a single artwork.

Common combinations include acrylic paint with charcoal, ink, oil pastel or graphite; collage elements such as paper, fabric or found materials incorporated into a painted surface; and the use of gesso, sand, or other texture mediums to alter the ground before painting begins. There are no rules about what can or cannot be combined.

The appeal of mixed media lies in the expressive possibilities that open up when materials are layered or combined. Different media behave differently: some are opaque, some transparent; some sit on the surface, some sink into it; some dry hard, some remain slightly flexible. Working across these differences allows an artist to build up complex surfaces with varied texture, depth and visual weight that would be impossible to achieve with a single medium.

The term mixed-media covers a broad range of practice, from small-scale works on paper to large-scale paintings, and has been central to avant-garde and contemporary art since the early twentieth century.

Mixed media is closely related to, but distinct from, collage (which specifically involves adhering flat materials to a surface) and assemblage (which extends into three dimensions).

There are two different but related meanings:

1. A flat surface used by artists to mix and hold paints while working.

2. Describes the range of colours used in a particular artwork or by an artist in general.

A technique used in drawing and painting to create the illusion of depth and three-dimensional space on a flat surface. Linear perspective uses vanishing points, while atmospheric perspective relies on colour and clarity.

A specialised cord designed for hanging art pieces. It exhibits minimal stretch and maintains its tautness over time. Available in various widths and strengths, a 1.5 mm cord can generally hold artwork weighing up to 20 kg.

Fixtures (also known as Mirror Plates) designed to firmly mount picture frames and mirrors onto walls or inclined surfaces. They ensure a strong hold, ideal for public areas. Typically two are required per piece of art.

In the world of picture framing,rabbet depthrefers to the distance from the front edge of the frame’s inner lip (the part you see from the front) to the bottom of the groove or recess cut into the back of the frame. This groove, known as therabbet, is where all the components of your frame sandwich fit snugly, including the glass, mountboard, artwork, and backing board.

Why does rabbet depth matter?Think of rabbet depth as the frame’s “storage space.” If it’s too shallow, you’ll struggle to fit all the layers neatly, risking damage to your artwork or an insecure fit. Conversely, a deeper rabbet provides more room for thicker materials, such as stacked mounts or foam board.

For example, if you’re framing a delicate watercolour with a single mount and standard glass, a shallow rabbet might suffice. But for a cherished oil painting or a multi-layered mixed-media painting, you’ll need a deeper rabbet to accommodate the extra thickness.

In short, rabbet depth is the unsung hero of picture framing, ensuring everything fits beautifully and stays protected for years to come!

An artistic style that aims to represent subjects as they appear in real life, with attention to detail and accuracy. Realism often contrasts with more stylised or abstract forms of art.

An Italian term meaning “smoked.” It describes a painting technique where colours and tones are blended subtly, without harsh outlines, to create a soft, gradual transition between light and shadow.

A heavy-duty fabric, usually made of cotton or linen, stretched over a wooden frame, used as a surface for painting. Artists commonly use canvases for oil and acrylic painting.

Supercalendering is a finishing process used in paper manufacturing to produce an exceptionally smooth, dense and glossy surface. The paper is fed through a supercalender, a stack of alternating hard steel and softer composite rollers, under high pressure and sometimes heat. This compresses the paper fibres tightly together, reducing surface texture and increasing both smoothness and sheen.

Unlike standard calendering, which uses only steel rollers and is part of the main production line, supercalendering is carried out as a separate finishing stage and achieves a significantly higher degree of polish. The result is a paper that is not only visually glossy but physically denser and less porous, which is what gives supercalendered papers such as glassine their resistance to air, water and grease.

The process is widely used in the production of coated papers, magazine stock and specialist archival papers.

To tessellate is to cover a surface using one or more repeated shapes, fitted together with no gaps and no overlaps. The resulting pattern is known as a tessellation. The word comes from the Latin tessella, a small square tile, itself derived from tessera, the cubes used in ancient Roman and Greek mosaics.

A shape is said to tessellate if it can tile a plane completely on its own, as squares, triangles and hexagons do. More complex tessellations combine two or more different shapes, fitted together according to a repeating rule. Tessellation has a long history in design and architecture, found in Islamic geometric art, Roman and Byzantine mosaics, and traditional tilework across many cultures.

In the twentieth century, the Dutch artist M. C. Escher became closely associated with tessellation, developing intricate interlocking patterns of birds, fish and other figures that pushed the technique well beyond its decorative origins into a form of visual exploration of symmetry, repetition and infinity.

In contemporary art and design, tessellation continues to be used both as a decorative device and as a way of exploring pattern, structure and mathematical principles within visual composition.

Texture in paintings adds depth, interest, and emotional impact, making the artwork more engaging and dynamic. Texture can evoke a sensory response, draw attention to specific areas, and create contrasts that enhance the overall composition.

Different Ways of Creating Texture in a Painting:

• Brush Techniques: Brush strokes can be used to create texture. For example, short, choppy strokes will produce a rough texture, while long, smooth strokes can produce a silky finish.

• Impasto: This technique involves applying thick layers of paint to create a raised surface. Brush or pallet knife strokes are usually highly pronounced. Vincent van Gogh famously used impasto to give his paintings a dynamic, almost sculptural quality.

• Collage: Materials such as fabric, paper, and sand can be incorporated into paintings to create physical texture.

• Sgraffito: The term sgraffito comes from the Italian word sgraffire, which literally means “to scratch.” This method involves painting one or more layers of paint onto a canvas or other surface, letting it dry, then painting over it again in a different colour. Areas of the wet paint are then scratched off to reveal the dry paint beneath, allowing the under-painting to show through in places and creating a textured surface. It can add complexity, contrast and depth to a painting.

• Palette Knife: A palette knife can be used instead of a brush to apply paint thickly or scrape it away, creating a variety of textures, from smooth, flat areas to rough, ridged surfaces.

• Mixed Media: Different materials can be combined, such as paint, charcoal, pastels, and even found objects, to create varied textures within a single artwork. This can create physical layers of interesting texture.

• Layering and Glazing: Building up multiple layers of paint can create texture through the thickness of the paint itself or by revealing different layers through transparent or semi-transparent glazes.

A triptych is an artwork made up of three panels or canvases, which are displayed together, side-by-side, as a unified whole. The composition flows across all three canvases, which do not have to be the same size as each other, the central one is sometimes larger.

The format has its origins in early Christian devotional art, where hinged triptychs were used as portable altarpieces, with the two outer panels folding inward to protect the paintings from damage during transport. Some of the most celebrated examples of this tradition include the Flemish painter Hans Memling's altarpieces of the fifteenth century and Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, one of the most iconic triptychs in Western art history.

During the twentieth century, the triptych was enthusiastically adopted by modern and contemporary artists as a way of exploring sequence, variation and the relationship between images. Francis Bacon made the format central to his practice, using it to fragment and multiply the human figure across three canvases. Other artists have used it to suggest narrative, the passage of time, or simply to work on a scale that a single canvas could not accommodate.

Works with two panels are known as diptychs, and those with four or more as polyptychs.

For an example from my own work, see Reflections of Spring

An initial layer of paint applied to a canvas or panel that serves as a base for subsequent layers. The underpainting can be used to create physical texture to be painted over, or colours can be laid down to establish the tonal values of the final composition.

A transparent protective finish applied to paintings after they are completed. Varnish can enhance the vibrancy of colours and protect the artwork from dust, light, and moisture. Different varnishes are availablewith a variety of properties that can affect the look of the final paintings and type of protection provided.

1. Protection:
Dust and Dirt: Varnish acts as a protective layer against dust, dirt, and pollutants that can settle on the surface of the painting and make cleaning the painting easier.

Moisture: Varnish provides a barrier against moisture, which can cause damage to the paint layers and the substrate (e.g., canvas, wood).

UV Protection: Some varnishes include UV inhibitors, which help prevent colours from fading due to exposure to sunlight.

2. Visual Enhancement:

Colour Saturation: Glossy Varnishes enhance the richness and depth of colours, making them appear more vibrant and unified.

Even Surface Finish: Varnishes create a consistent finish across the painting, whether glossy, matte, or somewhere in between, reducing the appearance of uneven glossiness that can occur as paint dries.

Prevent Reflections:Mat varnishes prevent reflections and specular highlights appearing on the paintings. This is useful for paintings that are lit with artificial lighting, particularly spot lights.

Creative Effect: High-gloss varnish looks shiny and wet, while mat varnish looks bone-dry. These properties can be used for pictorial effect within a painting.

3. Preservation:

Reversibility: Some varnishes are designed to be removable, allowing conservators to clean the painting in the future without damaging the underlying paint layers. They can remove the varnish and apply a new one if needed.

Longevity: By protecting the painting from environmental factors and physical wear, varnish helps extend the lifespan of the artwork.

A technique in painting where a layer of diluted paint or ink is applied to create a transparent effect. Washes are often used in watercolour painting to build up layers of colour, they are also used when working with acrylics or oils to build luminosity and depth.

A type of paint made with pigments suspended in a water-based solution. Watercolours are known for their transparency and are best used on heavyweight watercolour papers. Watercolour paints can create soft washes or be built up in layers for more intensity. They are capable of producing both very strong colour and soft subtle ‘watery’ effects.