Glossary of Drawing Terminology

A
Abstraction: The reduction of an image or object to an essential aspect of its form or concept.
Acute angle: An angle less than 90 degrees.
Aerial perspective: See atmospheric perspective.
Angle of light: The direction of a light source in relation to an object that determines the length
of shadows. A light source positioned high creates short shadows; a light source positioned low
creates long shadows.
Ascending planes: Flat surfaces not parallel to the ground or floor planes whose vanishing
points appear above the horizon line.
Atmospheric perspective: A visual phenomenon in which the atmospheric density progressively
increases, hazing over the perceived world as one looks into its depth. Sometimes called aerial
perspective, it is based on the fact that as objects recede into the distance they lose clarity,
color intensity, and contrast.
Axis: The central line around which the parts of a thing are evenly arranged.

B
Background: The most distant zone of space in a three-dimensional illusion.
Balance: A sense of equilibrium throughout a work of art.
Blind contour: Line drawings produced without looking at the paper. Such drawings are done to
heighten the feeling for space and form and to improve hand-eye coordination.
Block-in: The process of beginning a drawing using exaggerated blocky forms to suggest
proportions and one uniform value to address light and shadow.
Blurred line: A smudged, erased, or destroyed line.
Bond paper: Stationary or computer paper – a lightweight, relatively smooth paper with a hard
surface and tight grain, excellent for use with graphite or colored pencils, ballpoint pen, or pen-
and-ink.
Burnishing: A shiny effect due to excessive layering of various dry drawing media under
pressure -- may be lifted by pressing a kneaded eraser against the polished surface.

C
Calligraphic line: Free-flowing line that resembles handwriting, making use of gradual and
graceful transitions in line weight.
Carbonized wood: Charcoal produced by heating slips of wood (without fire) to remove organic
matter.
Cast shadow: A dark shape that results from placement of an opaque object in the path of a
light source.
Chalk: A wide variety of easily crumbled drawing materials produced in either rounded or
square sticks ranging from course to fine, hard to soft, or dry to greasy, originally obtained from
natural colored earths. Fabricated chalk is made with pastes of water-soluble binding media
mixed with dry pigments, sometimes with additional inert clays, then rolled, pressed into sticks,
and dried.
Chamois: A soft leather made from the skin of antelope, sheep, deer, etc. commonly used by
artists to control gradations in drawings done with dry drawing media--especially charcoal.
Charcoal: Carbonized wood; willow (or sallow, a species of willow) twigs heated to a state of
carbon in sealed chambers excluding oxygen in order that the wood not burn and be reduced to
ashes.
Charcoal paper: A textured paper abrasive to charcoal due to its hardness of tooth; available in
different weights in white, gray tones, and muted colors.
Chiaroscuro: (from Italian meaning “light-dark”) Refers to the gradual transition of values used
in drawing to create the illusion of light and shadow on three-dimensional form.
Concave: A shape that is hollow and curved, like the inside portion of a bowl.
Convex: A shape that curved outward, like the surface of a sphere.
Closed composition: When the elements of form or structure are visually well contained by the
edges of the picture plane.
Closed form: When a color, value, tone, or texture is confined within the contour or silhouette
of an object, shape, or form, thereby stressing visual separation or isolation from the
surrounding elements.
Cold press: Paper with a matte surface that is softer and toothier than hot press.
Composition: The essential structure of a picture separate from subject, style, and meaning;
fundamental abstract design casting line, shape, value, pattern, texture, and color through the
principles of balance, harmony, rhythm, repetition, variation, dominance, subordination, and
focus.
Compressed charcoal: Powdered carbonized wood mixed with a binding material and pressed
into chalk-like sticks and labeled according to hardness from HB (hardest and lightest) to 6B
(softest and darkest).
Cone of vision: In perspective drawing, a hypothetical cone of perception originating at the eye
of the artist and expanding outward to include whatever he or she wishes to record in an
illusionistic image, such as a perspective drawing. The cone’s maximum scoping angle is 45 – 60
degrees; anything outside the cone of vision is subject to distortion
Conte Crayon: Semi-hard chalks of fine texture and various sizes containing a sufficient oil in
the binder to adhere more or less permanently to smooth paper—available in black, white,
brown, and sanguine (Venetian red), and three degrees of hardness.
Content: The subject matter of a work of art, including its emotional, intellectual, symbolic,
thematic, and narrative connotations, which together give the work its total meaning.
Contour: The outermost extremity or limit of a shape, whether two- or three-dimensional.
Contour drawing: Capturing in a highly descriptive way the extreme edges of a shape, form, or
object, depicting it as separate from its adjacent or neighboring forms.
Contour line: A line of varying weight used to describe the outside edges of an object as well as
the edges of planes and other features contained within the outline of a form.
Contrast: The degree of difference between compositional parts or between one image and
another. Contrast is created when two or more forces operate in opposition.
Convergence: In the system of linear perspective, parallel lines in nature appear to converge
(come together) as they recede.
Core of shadow/core shadow: The most concentrated area of dark on an illuminated sphere
and one of the value gradations of chiaroscuro—the core of the shadow receives no
illumination.
Cropping: The manner in which a section of an image or a fragment of observed reality has
been framed. For example, photographers select a fragment of reality every time they look
through the viewfinder of the camera. Part of the scene is included, while the remainder is cut
away. Photographs are often cropped further in the darkroom, leaving only the most significant
information.
Cross-contour lines: Multiple lines running over the surface of an object horizontally and/or
vertically that describe its surface configuration topographically, as in mapping. This process is
much like wire-framing in three-dimensional computer modeling. Cross-contours can also be
used in drawing to suggest three-dimensional form through tonal variation.
Cross-hatching: The intersection of hatched or massed lines to produce optical gray tones.
Curvilinear shapes: Two-dimensional shapes that are composed exclusively of curved edges.

D
Descending planes: Flat surfaces not parallel to the ground or floor planes whose vanishing
points fall below the horizon line.
Descriptive drawing: Highly detailed renderings intended to articulately define what is seen.
Design: A working plan or an arrangement of parts, form, color, etc.
Diminution: In linear perspective, the phenomenon of similarly-scaled objects appearing
smaller as they recede.
Direction of light: The position of light that determines the direction shadows fall—when the
light is to one side, shadows are cast to the opposite side—when at your back, shadows fall
frontally away from you.
Drawing: The act by which an artist records what he or she sees or feels; the fine art of making
a descriptive visual expression by dragging a tool across a receptive surface—usually a piece of
fine-quality, toothed paper.

E
Edge: The border or margin of a shape or form.
Ellipse: A closed curve in the form of a symmetrical oval that is used to represent a circle seen
in perspective.
Empirical perspective: Defines a system of perspective that, unlike linear perspective, relies on
direct observation rather than on a set of rules.
Eye level (Horizon line): In linear perspective, the eye level is determined by the physical
position of the artist. Sitting on the floor creates a low eye level, while standing at an easel
creates a higher eye level. All vanishing points in one- and two-point perspective are positioned
on the eye level.

F
Figure: The primary or positive shape in a design; a shape that is noticeably separated from the
background. The figure is the dominant shape in a figure-ground relationship.
Figure/ground: Compositional circumstances where the figurative elements read as positive
shapes and project forward from the negative shapes, or background.
Figure-ground stacking: A sequential overlapping of forms in a drawing, making the terms
figure and ground relative designations.
Fixative spray: A fine granular mist that dries quickly while forming a protective, porous coating
that fixes or holds the fine particles of dry media in place.
Fixed viewpoint: A mandatory rule that establishes an unchanging position from which an
object or scene is viewed, enabling the rules of linear perspective to be enacted.
Floor plane: The interior horizontal plane that the viewer stands on which extends to the
horizon.
Focus: The center of visual importance within a composition to which all other elements yield.
Foreground: The closest zone of space in a three-dimensional illusion.
Foreshortening: A technique for producing the illusion of an object’s extension in space by
contracting its form.
Form: The shape, structure, and volume of actual objects in our environment, or the depiction
of three-dimensional objects in a work of art. Form also refers to a drawing’s total visual
structure or composition.
Formal: Refers to an emphasis on the organizational form, or composition, of a work of art.
Format: The overall shape and size of the drawing surface.
Full range: A complete gradation of tonal values from the lightest to the darkest value, whether
black and white or in a color context.

G
Geometric shape: Shape created by mathematical laws and measurements, such as a circle or a
square.
Gesture: The essential line or depicted state of movement of a live or still form.
Gesture drawing: A spontaneous representation of the dominant physical and expressive
attitudes of an object or space.
Gradation: A gradual change of value that occurs in stages, from light to dark. Shading created
through the gradation of grays can be used to suggest three-dimensional form.
Graphite: A soft form of carbon found in nature and used as lead in pencils. It is manufactured
in a wide range of very soft to very hard states and produces a lustrous black (soft state) or
gray-black (hard state) mark when dragged against a receptive surface—also available in stick,
chunk, or powdered form.
Ground plane: The flat, horizontal plane on which the viewer stands that extends to the
horizon.

H
Halftone: The transitional area of value located between the highlight and the core shadow.
Hatched lines: The repetition of parallel linear strokes with a drawing tool, used to produce
clusters of lines creating values and tonal variations, usually descriptive of surface or form.
High key: The lightest values on a value scale—white through middle gray.
Highlight: The lightest values present on the surface of an illuminated form.
Horizon line: A line corresponding to the eye level of the viewer in linear perspective; contains
the vanishing points in a one-point or two-point perspective drawing.
Horizontal: Parallel to the plane of the horizon; flat and even, level.
Hot press: One of three standard grades of illustration board and watercolor paper
characterized as having a hard surface that has been press-cured with heat and weight and
possesses the smoothest, least absorbent surface—excellent for very refined, controlled
drawing techniques.

I
Idealized drawing: A rendering which achieves a satisfactory resemblance to the subject while
simultaneously eliminating imperfections.
Illusionistic space: In the graphic arts, a representation of three-dimensional space.
Illustration: A highly detailed image that visually communicates a message, offers description,
or portrays an episode of a story.
Implied line: A line that stops and starts again; the viewer’s eye completes the movement that
the line suggests.
Implied shape: A suggested or incomplete shape that is “filled in” by the viewer.
Inclined planes: Planes not parallel to the ground or floor planes whose vanishing points exist
on vertical lines that pass through the corresponding vanishing point on the horizon line.
Invented texture: An invented, nonrepresentational patterning that may derive from actual
texture but does not imitate it. Invented texture may be highly stylized.
Isometric perspective: Also known as orthographic projection, a drawing system widely used by
artists and designers to delineate the top, bottom, and four side views of a three-dimensional
object. Unlike linear perspective drawing, which is designed to create the illusion of space, an
isometric drawing is constructed using parallel lines that accurately delineate the six surfaces of
an object.

K
Kneaded eraser: A soft, malleable eraser that is used to lighten values or as an aid in the
creation of gradations.

L
Layout: The placement of an image within a two-dimensional format.
Life drawing: Drawing from live forms in order to gain visual understanding of the movements,
gestures, and physical capabilities of live bodies as aesthetically pleasing art forms.
Light: The illumination of an object making sight possible; a major component of chiaroscuro
helping to define forms in space within a composition.
Line: The pathway of a moving point as in the trail of a scratch, a brush stroke, or the engraved
deposition of drawing material resulting from dragging a tool over a receptive surface; visible
by contrasts in value.
Line gesture: A type of gesture drawing that describes interior forms, utilizing line rather than
mass.
Line quality: The visual traits and/or expressive character of lines.
Line weight: Refers to the character of lines—dark or bold lines are described as heavy, thin
lines are described as light.
Linear perspective: A mathematical method for determining the correct placement of forms in
space and the degree to which such forms appear to diminish in size at given distances.
Local value: The inherent tonality of an object’s surface, regardless of incidental lighting effects
or surface texture.
Low key: The darkest half of the value scale with the lightest value being no lighter than middle
gray.
Lyrical line: A subjective line that is gracefully ornate and decorative.
 M
Mass: The illusion of weight or density in a drawing.
Measuring: A proportional technique in which a pencil is used to gauge the relative sizes of the
longest and shortest dimensions of an object.
Mechanical line: An objective line that maintains its width unvaryingly along its full length.
Medium: The specific tool and material used by an artist or designer, such as a brush and oil
paint or chisel and stone.
Middle key: The span of five values in the exact center of a nine-step value scale.
Middleground: The intermediate zone of space in a three-dimensional illusion.
Modeling: The change from light to dark across a surface; a technique for creating the illusion
of form and/or space.
Multiple perspectives: Different eye levels and perspectives used in the same drawing.

N
Naturalistic representation: The depiction of subject matter in its most natural and unaltered
state.
Negative space: The space surrounding a positive shape, sometimes referred to as ground,
empty space, interspace, field, or void.
Nonobjective: In the visual arts, work that intends no reference to concrete objects or persons,
unlike abstraction, in which observed forms are sometimes altered to seem nonobjective.
Non-representational shapes: Two-dimensional shapes that do not symbolize, illustrate, or
represent anything outside of themselves.

O
Objective: Free from personal feelings; the emphasis is on the descriptive and factual rather
than the expressive or subjective.
Oblique: A slanting line or plane that is not parallel to the edges of the picture plane.
Obtuse angle: An angle greater than 90 degrees.
One-point perspective: A system for depicting three-dimensional depth on a two-dimensional
surface, dependent upon the illusion that all parallel lines that recede into space converge at a
single point on the horizon, called a vanishing point.
Open composition: A visual circumstance where images of forms and structures appear
unrelated to the size of the paper and unlimited by its outer edges, creating the impression that
the composition exceeds the boundaries of the picture plane.
Open form: Where the values of shapes or masses blend into the surrounding composition
without noticeable separations allowing for compositional integration, a feeling of movement,
and unified vitality.
Organic forms: Forms that are derived from nature.
Organic shape: A free-form, irregular shape.
Organizational line: The line that provides the structure and basic organization for a drawing.
Orthogonal line: In linear perspective, an oblique line that is drawn using a vanishing point.
Outline: Line that delineates only the outside edge of an object, unlike contour line, which also
delineates the edges of planes.
Overlapping: An effective way to represent and organize space in a pictorial work of art.
Overlapping occurs when one object obscures from view part of a second object.

P
Parallel: Extending in the same direction at the same distance apart, so as never to meet.
Pattern: A repeated compositional element or regular repetition of a design or single shape.
Pen nib: The particular point of a pen available in different types and sizes—whether quill,
reed, bamboo, or steel—that controls the character of a line.
Pencil: A wooden or paper cylindrical tool encasing a graphite, charcoal, crayon, or colored
pigment rod of a wide variety of hard and soft grades—the most versatile drawing instrument
since the end of the eighteenth century, and the most commonly used writing implement until
the invention of the cartridge pen.
Perpendicular: At right angles to a given plane or line; exactly upright or vertical.
Perspective: A mathematical method of representing forms as they recede in space and
diminish in size using converging lines that meet at a central vanishing point on the horizon line.
Pictorial: Refers to a picture, not only its actual two-dimensional space but also its potential for
three-dimensional illusion.
Picture plane: The actual flat surface, or opaque plane, on which a drawing is produced. It also
refers to the imaginary, transparent “window of nature” that represents the format of a
drawing mentally superimposed over real-world subject matter.
Planar analysis: A structural description of a form in which its complex curves are generalized
into major plane zones.
Plane: A perfectly flat surface as a geometric plane, ground plane, or floor plane; a three-
dimensional form that has length and width but minimal thickness.
Plastic: The appearance of volume and space in a two-dimensional painting or drawing.
Plastic eraser: A hard rectangular eraser used to completely erase marks within a drawing.
Positive shape: The principal or foreground shape in a design and the dominant shape or figure
in a figure-ground relationship.
Profile: The side view of an object.
Proportion: Comparative relationship between parts of a whole and between the parts and the
whole.

Q
Quarter-tone: After the highlight, the next brightest area of illumination on a form.

R
Rag paper: Paper made from cotton rag or flax linen and used for drawing, printmaking, and
watercolor.
Rectilinear shapes: Two-dimensional shapes that are characterized by having four sides that
meet one another at right angles; shapes based upon rectangles and squares.
Reflected light: The effect of light bouncing back from reflective surfaces—functions as fill-in
light making objects appear rounded by giving definition to the core of the shadow—one of the
value gradations of chiaroscuro.
Render: To draw with an unusually high degree of detailed representation.
Repetition: The visual evidence of regularity and unity in the appearance of lines, shapes,
textures, colors, values, and movements within a composition.
Representational shapes: Shapes meant to emulate the subject of a drawing.
Rough tooth: Heavily textured, readily visible surface terrain of paper as in charcoal and
watercolor papers.

S
Sanguine: The natural red chalk ranging in color from blood- to brownish-red discovered just
prior to the fifteenth century in European mine deposits. First used for drawing in the late
fifteenth century around the time of Leonardo da Vinci.
Scale: Size and weight relationships between forms.
Shading: A continuous series of grays that are used to suggest three-dimensionality and to
create the illusion of light; a type of gradation.
Shadow: The state of being blocked or partially blocked from directional light or illumination;
also a precise area of shade cast by an object intercepting directional rays of light.
Shallow space: A relatively flat space, having height and width but limited depth.
Shape: A two-dimensional closed or implicitly closed configuration.
Sighting: The visual measurement of objects and spaces between objects.
Simplified: To make simpler or less complex.
Simulated texture: The imitation of the tactile quality of a surface; can range from a suggested
imitation to a highly illusionistic duplication of the subject’s texture.
Sketch: A drawing, or an act of drawing done quickly with minimal or no elaboration, but
effectively captures the essential form in space, with basic light and shadow.
Source of light: The origin of illumination whether natural or artificial.
Space: The negative aspect or complement of form, whether two- or three-dimensional.
Stacked perspective: The use of stacking parallel base lines in the same composition.
State of finish: The quality or degree of completeness, and/or expressiveness.
Stick charcoal: Made by heating sticks of willow wood about one-quarter inch in diameter in
kilns until the organic materials have evaporated (carbonized) and only dry carbon remains.
Stippling: The building of tonal descriptions through the concentrated use of tiny dots—when
closer together they produce darker passages; when farther apart, lighter tones.
Structural line: Line that helps locate objects in relation to other objects and to the space they
occupy.
Stumps: A cylinder that is pointed on each end consisting of tightly rolled paper, used with dry
media for blending tones.
Stylized: Designed or represented according to a style rather than nature.
Subject: The person, object, event, or idea on which an artwork is based.
Subjective: Resulting from the feelings of the person thinking; not objective.
Subject matter: The things represented in a work of art, such as landscape, portrait, or
imaginary event.
Symmetrical balance: The dividing of a composition into two equal halves with seemingly
identical elements on each side of the central vertical axis.

T
Tangent: Touching; touching a curved surface at one point but not intersecting it.
Taper: To decrease gradually in width or thickness.
Texture: The surface character or tactile qualities experienced either through the sense of
touch or through the imagination.
Three-dimensional: Having height, width, and depth; synonymous with form.
Three-dimensional space: The illusion of volume or volumetric space.
Three-point perspective: A system for depicting three-dimensional depth on a two-dimensional
surface. In addition to lines receding to two points on the horizon, lines parallel and vertical to
the ground appear to converge to a third vanishing point located either above or below the
horizon line.
Thumbnail: A small drawing that is used to determine the composition and value structure of a
larger work of art.
Tooth: The abrasive texture or grain of paper that makes drawing possible by causing the
friable nature of dry media to crumble, reduce, and adhere to paper when dragged across its
textured surface.
Tortillon: A paper shading stump used with dry media for blending tones.
Trompe-l’oeil: (French for deceive the eye) Applies to the poignantly real illusions that convince
viewers they are looking at the actual objects instead of their two-dimensional representations.
Two-dimensional: Having height and width; synonymous with shape.
Two-dimensional space: Space that has height and width with little or no illusion of depth.
Two-point perspective: A form of linear perspective in which the lines receding into space
converge at two vanishing points on the horizon line (eye level), one to the left of the object
being drawn and one to the right

U
Unit of measure: A portion of a complex shape or three-dimensional form that is used to
measure all of the other elements within the shape or form—the head serves as a good unit of
measure for determining proportional relationships within a human figure.

V
Value: The relative lightness or darkness of a surface.
Vanishing point: In linear perspective, the point on the horizon line at which receding parallel
lines appear to converge.
Vertical: Upright, straight up or down.
Viewfinder: A small cardboard or paper sheet with a cut-away square or rectangular center
through with one looks to frame a composition, as with a viewfinder apparatus in a camera.
Vine charcoal: The highest quality stick charcoal—named for plant vines from which it is
extracted through heating and carbonization.
Visual weight: The amount of attention demanded by an element within a two-dimensional or
three-dimensional composition.
Volume: The quality of a form that has height, width, and depth; the representation of this
quality.

W
Working drawings: The studies artists make in preparation for a final work of art.
Wove finish paper: A paper whose surface texture appears woven—an effect produced by the
finely woven cloth or wire mesh of the mold, and evinces no other lines or embossed marks
characteristic of the mold structure.
Bibliography

Betti, Claudia. Drawing: A Contemporary Approach/Claudia Betti, Teel Sale. Fourth Edition.
Thomson Learning, Inc. 1997.

Enstice, Wayne. Drawing: Space, Form, and Expression/Wayne Enstice, Melody Peters. Third
edition. Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ. 2003.

Mendelowitz, Daniel. A Guide to Drawing/Daniel Mendelowitz, David Faber, and Duane

Wakeham--Seventh Edition, Thomson Wadsworth, Belmont, CA. 2007.

Stewart, Mary. Launching the Imagination – Fourth Edition, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. 2012.