Painting Terms and Definitions

Key - used to describe te prevailing tone of a painting. A predominantly light painting is said to have a high key. In contemporary mural painting, the key is the result of scratching a walls surface to prepare for final layer of plaster - similar to "tooth".

Lake - a dye that has been chemically or electrically attached to a particle and does not bleed or migrate./li>

Latex - a dispersion in water of a solid polymeric material.

Leaching - the process of drawing out excess liquid through a porous substance.

Lean - used as an adjective to describe paint thinned with a spirit, which therefore has a low oil content.

Levigating - a method of water-washing pulverized pigments to clear the particles of dissolved salts or organic matter.

Local Color - the actual color of an object or surface, unaffected by shadow coloring, light quality or other factors.

Loom State - canvas that has not been primed, sized or otherwise prepared beforehand for painting.

Matiere - paint.

Marouflage - a technique for attaching, with glue, mural size painting on paper or fabric to a wall.

Masstone - the top tone or body color of a paint seen only by reflected light.

Mat - a stiff cardboard with a window cut out of the center, attached to a backboard.

Matte - flat, nonglossy; having a dull surface appearance. Variant spelling - matt.

Medium - the liquid in which pigments are suspended. Also a material chosen by the artist for working. Pural is Media.

Migration - the action of a pigment or dye moving through a dried film above or below it.

Mixed Media - in drawing and painting this refers to the use of different media in the same picture.

Monomer - a material with low molecular weight that can react with similar or dissimilar materials to form a polymer.

Mosaic - picture making technique using small units of variously coloed materials(glass, tile, stone) set in a mortar.

Mural - also referred to as wall painting, this word describes any paiting made directly on the wall.

Museum Board - multiply board made of custom rags or buffered cellulose to ensure chemical stability and neutrality.

Opaque - paint that is not transparent.

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