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Margret E. Short Fine Arts

Margret E. Short Fine Arts

Portland, Oregon artist Margret Short - a modern day master of 17th Century Dutch art using the chiaroscuro technique to create still life and floral paintings.

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Art Glossary 101

February 12, 2007 by Margret Short

Glossary (glos’e-re, glos’-) n.  pl. -ries   A lexicon of the technical obscure, or foreign words of a work or field. (<L glossarium <glossa, See GLOSS-)   glossarial (glo-sar’ e’ el) adj. –glosssarially  adv. — glossarist (glos’e rist, glos’) n.

Glossitis — Inflammation fo the tongue. Really …its in the dictionary.

To me, books about painting methods and materials that do not have a glossary are not much good. If it is good book, one worth having, but does not contain a glossary, I start one somewhere on one of those mysteriously blank pages that are always at the back or front of books.

All of my books are filled with highlighting, underlining, notes, scribbles, and sticky tabs in a rainbow of colors. It was an agonizing decision to make that first mark in a pristine $80.00 Rembrandt book, hardcover. But once that highlighter made its first neon appearance, there was no turning back. These markings make it immensely easier when going back for review of all kinds of subjects that captured my interested in the first place.

All sorts of books in my library, even ones by Cennino Cennini, DaVinci, Ernst von de Wetering, Velasquez, and Donald Fels, books about Rembrandt, Vermeer, Caravaggio, Hals, Femish painters, still life, landscape, and countless others have not escaped the wrath of my pesky highlighter. Fortunately, most have glossaries but those that don’t have my handmade ones on those mysterious blank pages.

Chiaroscuro Painting

Oil painting with the chiaroscuro technique illuminates the focus area with a strong light. All other areas are painted with less detail, lower values, and intensity of color giving a mysterious appearance. By putting one or two objects in the important focus area, a strong but simple composition will emerge. Combining these oil painting techniques with a selection of superior natural pigments and oil paints result in the beautiful and evocative quality known as Chiaroscuro Painting.

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