Printing Vocabulary

Learn the definition of the words below to help you to describe artwork and artefacts in both your critical studies and class work.

Artefact This word comes from the Latin words ars meaning art and fact meaning made. It is something made with skill by someone.

Intaglio Intaglio is a type of print where the image comes from beneath the surface of the printing block. Collagraph is a type of intaglio printing.

Collagraph A collagraph is a print that is created by gluing down paper and card on a printing block for different textures (hence collagraph, as in collage). The printing block is then inked up and a print is taken from it.

Relief In printmaking, a relief print is one that is taken from the surface of an image, either gouged out as in a linoprint, or built up, as in a string print (where string is glued onto a piece of card).

Composition A composition is something which is put together as an arrangement of different elements. In art, the visual elements are combined by paying attention to things such as balance, harmony, rhythm and contrast to give a unified whole. Sometimes, composition is used to refer to one piece of artwork, such as a painting.      

Texture Texture is the surface quality of an object. In art, it can refer to an illusion of texture, for example, in a painting which shows the smoothness of a child’s face and the rough surface of a tree. It can also refer to actual texture, as in collage. In your own work, you can achieve different textures by adding different materials to your paint.

Collage The term collage comes from the French coller meaning to glue or stick. It is a 2D technique, usually involving gluing down bits of paper, fabric or other materials to create or add to an artwork.

Visual (and Tactile) Elements This is a phrase which is sometimes used to cover all the parts we see (visual) or touch (tactile) in a work of art, such as colour.

Frottage Frottage is where an artwork is made by taking rubbings from a surface.

Process The procedures that one goes through in creating an artwork are known as the process, for example, the process of printmaking. form, line, pattern, texture and tone.