A passage or zone in an otherwise representational painting where the behavior of light reduces objects to color, pattern, and gesture rather than legible description. The subject becomes the optical event rather than the depicted thing.
Source: 20260309. Broader updated to OpticalCompositionStrategy.
In the St. Mark's painting, the foreground reflections constitute optical abstraction: the basilica and figures are reduced to vertical color signatures and broken strokes.
Display, site selection, mounting, and environmental considerations for exhibition.
XML-based vector graphics format with support for interactivity and scalability.
Drying, Flattening and Surface Protection
Allow full dry time, flatten if needed, and apply optional fixatives or varnish protocols.
Patience here prevents surface damage and preserves the clarity earned in earlier steps.
Heavy sheets may need minimal flattening; consider no-varnish if presenting under glazing.
A vellum finish multi-media drawing and painting surface.
Building mid-tones and transitions with transparent glazes, managing edges, carving lights negatively.
Form emerges here. Reserve darks for the end and let edges do more of the modeling than outlines.
Alternate wet-on-dry for control with wet-into-wet for atmosphere; keep glazing transparent and clean.
People assembled in a public or ceremonial space, typically without directed collective purpose ? the milling, non-directional social activity characteristic of tourist sites, plazas, and cultural monuments.
The public gathering as subject situates ordinary human presence within frameworks of cultural, historical, or religious significance.
Terms used to describe the materials, techniques, tools and related concepts used in painting.
The process includes steps for soaking the paper, stretching it and taping the paper to a stable panel to support it during painting.
A fast-drying, water-soluble paint derived from milk protein with properties similar to gouache.
The process of preparing to create a painting.
Material and lighting framework using measurable parameters (albedo, roughness, metallic) for realism.
Pressing objects (brush handles, empty ballpoint pens, blunt knives) into paper while a wash is still wet. The compressed areas absorb more pigment than the surrounding paper, leaving interesting dark marks.
The substance that gives paint its color; natural or synthetic, usually an insoluble powder. In watercolor, pigment is mixed with water and gum arabic to create paint.
A colored material, typically an insoluble particulate, used to impart hue and other optical properties to a paint or ink.
Software system controlling stroke behavior (pressure, tilt, spacing, opacity, flow).
The concept that tension and compression roles can be interchanged in complementary structural forms, as seen in Gaudi's hanging-chain models and later explored in tensegrity practice.
Candle wax applied to the painting surface permanently repels all subsequent paint. Used to preserve white paper or underlying color before painting; unlike masking fluid, waxed areas cannot be painted over later.
The use of ultramarine blue as the primary shadow color, providing chromatic depth and visual weight.
A bolder choice than Payne's gray or neutral mixes; requires confidence that the saturated blue will integrate with the overall palette.
The process of creating a 3D sculpture using digital media.
Isopropyl alcohol dropped onto a wet watercolor wash evacuates significant pigment from the treated area, creating a halo of color around each drop.
A tensegrity structure designed to fold and expand, used in space structures and robotics.
Informationalism is a concept of strengthening the capacity of information processing and communication, made possible by technological innovations.
The source of the interpretation of the artwork is Google Gemini
A pattern is a design in which lines, shapes, forms or colours are repeated. The part that is repeated is called a motif. Natural patterns echo forms and patterns found in nature.
The selection of what to include and exclude at the edges of a composition.
Adventurous cropping is cutting into forms at the edges to create dynamism and imply continuation beyond the frame.
Initial graded and variegated washes to set overall light, atmosphere, and major value masses.
This is the painting's breath. A single decisive pass often reads better than piecemeal local color.
One coherent sky-to-ground wash that locks the value horizon and dominant temperature.
A practitioner who engages in art-making casually, without sustained commitment to skill development or artistic standards.
Not pejorative; describes orientation toward the activity rather than skill level.
Carbon black produced from incomplete combustion of oils or resins; deep masstone, slow drying in oil.
A liquid latex-and-ammonia composition or adhesive film used to mask areas where paint is not wanted, preserving white space. Liquid frisket dries quickly and peels or rubs off easily when no longer needed; adhesive film must be cut to shape and is removed via its low-tack adhesive.
This could be considered a material, as well
The perceptual distinction between a subject (figure) and its surrounding area (ground), and the compositional interplay between them.
The overall spatial pattern formed by all tension elements considered as a single organism: how cables sweep, cluster, and define voids. This pattern often governs both structural behavior and visual identity.
A compositional band in which figures form a continuous or semi-continuous horizontal grouping across the picture plane, often mediating between foreground space and architectural structures.
Adopted from ChatGPT source as a useful child of HorizontalFriezeBanding. Adds specificity for figure-dominated middle registers.
A color's relative lightness or darkness
Materials used in the production of art.
Popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame.
Practices that mitigate risk to people and works during fabrication, transport, and installation.
A gray produced by mixing two complementary or near-complementary pigments rather than using a neutral gray or black. The resulting gray retains chromatic memory ? oscillating between warm and cool ? and integrates more naturally into a color-driven painting than a pre-mixed neutral.
Source: 20260309. No ChatGPT equivalent.
Example from practice: turquoise mixed with a touch of Indian red produces a variegated gray well suited to sunlit stonework, allowing the architecture to participate in the painting's overall color warmth.
Substances and stock used in constructing sculpture, physical or digital.
Includes digital assets as immaterial materials when used as primary modeling matter.
The combination of recurring choices in palette, technique, subject, and handling that make an artist's work recognizable.
A signature can be a strength (identity) or a constraint (predictability).
Copper acetate complex; transparent bluish-green noted for reactivity and historical stability issues in oil.
Coarse placement of forms and value masses to resolve staging before detail.
Rough gesso brushstrokes applied before painting to add textural interest beyond standard watercolor paper. Watercolor gesso or absorbent ground works best; must be fully dry before painting. Sedimentary colors settle into the crevasses, enhancing the texture.
The source of the interpretation of the artwork
Continuing to add to a painting past the point where stopping would have produced a livelier, fresher result. Subjective and difficult to judge; evaluate each brushstroke's purpose before applying it.
Torn Japanese rice paper adhered to the painting surface with dilute PVA glue, matte acrylic varnish, or a neutral-pH adhesive, producing interesting and unpredictable textural results depending on the paper type.
Pigments that absorb into the paper before the water evaporates, making them difficult to lift and prone to leaving a permanent stain. Staining is a property of the pigment itself, not an indicator of paint quality. Pthalo colors are common examples; viridian is a non-staining, sedimentary alternative.
Rebuilding dense or sculpted meshes into cleaner, animation-friendly topology.
The process includes compositional layout, palette choices and selection of techniques.
Mix a small quantity of dish soap with water and paint in a deep dish. Using a straw, blow bubbles in the soapy paint mixture until they fill the dish, then scrape the pigment-traced bubbles onto the paper. The resulting texture replicates the bubble shapes that formed and popped.
Taping a sheet of watercolor paper to a rigid support on all sides to prevent buckling and warping; keeps the surface flat during painting and ensures the finished work dries flat. Any paper under 300lb will warp if unstretched; stretching is unnecessary with synthetic papers or a watercolor block.
A polyhedron with two parallel, congruent n-gon bases rotated relative to one another and connected by an alternating band of 2n triangles.
For n = 3, the regular triangular antiprism is the octahedron.
The artist's true organizing subject or motivation for a painting, which may differ from its apparent descriptive subject. The conceptual primary subject drives compositional, technical, and sequencing decisions even when the visible subject appears to be something else.
Source: 20260309. Example: in St. Mark's, the acqua alta reflections are the conceptual primary subject, while the basilica facade and crowd are descriptive content. The painting was begun and concluded with the reflections; all other passages were structured around them.
The ability of a tensegrity structure to absorb disturbances (impact, vibration, shock) and return to a stable configuration while maintaining structural integrity. This is crucial in robotics and deployable systems.
Descriptions of the sense of twist in a tensegrity prism or module. A left-handed prism twists counterclockwise. Alternating handedness can produce symmetrical towers or balanced toroidal forms.
A large, smooth area of color without visible brushstrokes. May be a single color, a dark-to-light gradation of one color, or a gradation from one color to another.
Terms used to describe visual arts creative works.
the underlying framework, composition, and arrangement of a work's visual elements according to specific principles to create a unified and meaningful whole.
A compositional approach that determines the implied spatial or psychological relationship between the viewer and the depicted scene.
Adopted from ChatGPT source. Provides useful parent for ContemplativeWitnessPosition and related viewpoint concepts.
Willingness to use bold, saturated colors decisively rather than defaulting to safe, muted choices.
Occurs when a more dilute mix of paint is applied into a wet area, causing the paint to spread outward and typically dry in a cauliflower-shaped pattern. Often considered undesirable but also deliberately created to suggest clouds, foliage, flowers, or abstract texture.
The mixing of colours in a semi-controlled way by adding new colour to a wash that hasn't dried; backruns can be an unwelcome accident, but are also deliberately created by some artists to represent abstracted clouds, foliage or flowers, or just to create a specific mood and for visual interest.
The degree or rate of rotational twist along an axis. In tensegrities, helicity governs how strongly one polygonal end of a module is rotated relative to the other, affecting both structural response and visual energy.
Integration of Figures and Structural System (RS)
Bind figures to tensegrity nodes and axes; balance symmetry, asymmetry, and chirality; reveal readable lines of tension.
This is the point at which the work becomes unmistakably yours. When figure placements feel inevitable and the tension network reads at a glance, the sculpture acquires the calm of necessity rather than the noise of options.
Mapping synthesized from prior chats; user practice summary, Nov 2025.
Compiled by ChatGPT per user request, Nov 2025.
Top-level digital sculpture processes mapped to Rick Spates practice; kept discrete and aligned to general concepts.
Top-level processes for digital 3D sculpture focused on tensegrity-oriented practice.
This scheme offers a sculptor-centered, geometry-aware view of digital practice. It emphasizes structural logic and experiential presentation rather than a film or VFX style pipeline. The intent is to keep the categories tight enough to remain useful for tensegrity-inspired work while still general enough for other structurally driven sculpture.
This scheme treats model-viewer and HDRI selection as integral parts of the artwork, not merely display layers. The sculptures assert tensegrity as both structural metaphor and viewing discipline: attention is the medium that completes the piece.
Categories are indicative and may iterate; not a rigid production line.
Related properties suggest a loose flow; implement actual order per project needs.
Close matches maintain semantic alignment while allowing personal evolution of terms.
A color diluted by adding water; the more water added, the weaker the intensity.
Principles governing the use, interaction, and perception of color in visual art.
A condition in which the range of values is narrowed, often resulting in reduced contrast and diminished sense of depth.
Can occur intentionally for atmospheric effect or unintentionally as a technical limitation. Mid-tone compression is particularly common.
A highly absorbent paper used to soak up excess liquid (ink or paint) from the substrate.
The web of cables that connects all struts, maintaining the structural form.
A process used in the production of a creative work in the visual arts.
The technique of laying down a large area of even, consistent color by applying successive strokes side by side on a wet or dry surface.
Early-phase activities that establish intent, mood, and composition prior to detailed production.
Arsenic trisulfide; brilliant lemon to golden yellow with known incompatibilities (e.g., with lead and copper pigments).
the process of analyzing a work of art and assigning it meaning.
The vad:VisualAnalysis annotation makes art interpretation synonymous with art visual analysis. To say they are not synonymous in practice and are separate steps is a false dichotomy, a pedagogical convention. The moment you choose to describe a composition as "tense" rather than "balanced" you've already interpreted.
A complex structure built from repeating tensegrity cells, analogous to biological systems.
Shadows rendered using saturated colors (typically blues or violets) rather than neutral grays or black.
Contrast with 'dead' shadows created by adding black or Payne's gray.
Keeps shadows luminous and integrated with overall color harmony; a characteristic of Impressionist and post-Impressionist practice now standard in watercolor.
A wash that transitions gradually from dark to light by incrementally adding more water as it progresses. Useful for painting skies and seas.
The judgment to cease work on a painting before overworking diminishes its freshness or luminosity.
One of watercolor's hardest lessons; a sign of experience and discipline.
Projection of a 3D surface to 2D coordinates for precise texture placement.
Paint characteristic; the ability of certain paints and/or certain colours to cover completely, not allowing you to see through to lower layers; the opposite of transparent & translucent; ideal for over-painting.
The scope, risk, and complexity an artist pursues in their work.
Work characterized by depiction of specific, visited, remembered locations rather than invented or studio compositions.
Has a travel-journal quality; records of encounter with particular sites.
A design approach in which geometric, material, and prestress parameters (angles, lengths, force densities) are exposed as variables. Parametric tensegrity allows systematic exploration of families of forms rather than a single fixed object.
A round brush with a thick base tapering to a very fine tip. Highly versatile and capable of producing many different types of strokes.
The application of tensegrity principles to biological systems, explaining how cells, muscles, and skeletons maintain form and function.
A treatment of reflective passages in which tonal contrast is deliberately restrained so that reflections remain visually active without overpowering the larger compositional hierarchy.
Adopted from ChatGPT source as a child of OpticalReflectionField. Useful precision for describing how reflections are subordinated to composition.
(of signals or data) expressed as series of the digits 0 and 1.
Colors in the red, orange, and yellow range that appear to advance visually and evoke warmth.
A brush with one straight edge and one sloping edge resembling a knife blade, ideal for painting thin or tapering lines.
Document container supporting vector and raster content for print and delivery.
Dipping a pen nib into watercolor paint and drawing on paper creates controlled, potentially very fine lines. A glass dip pen offers similar results with greater paint capacity.
a trend or tendency in art, defined by a group of artists sharing a common philosophy, style, or goal
Standardized Colour Index designation for a pigment (e.g., PB29, PR106, NR9).
Permanent artists ink applied to a painting, then misted with a fine water spray while still wet to create soft, spidery textures that add an ancient, weathered quality.
Brushes made from nylon, polyester, or Taklon. Generally stiffer and springier than natural-hair brushes.
Approximation of soft contact shadows caused by occluded ambient light.
Legacy PostScript-based vector document format used for print and interchange.
randomly determined; having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely.
Analogous colors are colors that are adjacent on the Color Wheel. e.g. blue, blue/green, green.
Image generation and lighting tests used to evaluate form, material response, and legibility.
Drying, Flattening and Surface Protection (RS)
Minimal flattening on 300 lb paper; patient observation during drying to identify final adjustments.
Silence in this step is productive: it protects the freshness you built earlier.
Use the slow dry to judge whether the focal path still reads from across the room.
The simplest tensegrity prism, usually with three struts and nine cables (a T3).
The deliberate progression from warm colors in the foreground to cool colors in the distance, creating spatial depth.
A fundamental technique for establishing pictorial depth without relying solely on linear perspective.
The visual effect by which the tension network and compression members reveal their own load paths. Structural transparency is central to the aesthetic appeal of many tensegrity sculptures and installations.
Right-handed 3-strut tensegrity antiprism: upper ring rotated relative to the lower so that helical cross-cables trace a right-handed twist.
Number of distinct vertices in the configuration.
A family of tensegrity structures with n struts arranged in a twisted, prismatic form.
A characteristic, recurring selection of colors that becomes recognizable as part of an artist's visual identity.
Can be a strength (instant recognizability) or a limitation (predictability).
Computer graphics process is a step or set of steps performed in the creation of a computer graphics creative work.
Basic copper carbonate mineral used since antiquity; coarse particles yield bright azure, finer grades shift greener.
Hydrated chromium oxide; cool, transparent green introduced in the 19th century; good permanence in watercolor.
Visual programming paradigm connecting operators as nodes for materials, compositing, or geometry.
A compositional area in which reflected light and color patterns become the dominant visual phenomenon, often reducing depicted objects into abstract chromatic signatures.
Adopted from ChatGPT source. Genuinely distinct from OpticalAbstraction: this is about a compositional zone defined by reflection; OpticalAbstraction is about the perceptual event of light dissolving description. Both are needed.
A style characterized by free-flowing, spontaneous brushstrokes that capture the essence of a subject rather than precise detail, allowing colors to blend naturally and form soft edges.
This video seems the epitome of loose painting style.
A structural system that achieves stability by balancing isolated compression elements within a continuous tension network.
A mathematical group describing the full set of symmetries of a geometric or structural object, including rotations, reflections, or other operations that leave the object unchanged.
Do not conflate with informal descriptions of visual balance. Reserve this concept for group theoretic symmetry as applied to geometry and tensegrity configuration.
Used for recording symmetry classifications of tensegrity structures, including groups such as A5, D3, or other point groups relevant to strut and cable arrangements.
A gelatin-based substance used in watercolor paper manufacture, canvas stretching, and panel preparation. Slows paint absorption so most pigment remains on the surface; maintains structural integrity when wet, reduces buckling and warping, and encourages paper to return to its original shape when dry.
Some references to sizing consider it a process/tool
In a wet color wash, scrape small areas with the edge of a plastic piece or knife blade to produce an effect resembling sunlit rock faces.
Sculptural Modeling of Figures and Form Elements
Model figures and forms with sculptural intent, refine silhouette and negative space, prepare topology for integration.
Modeling choices should serve force readability. Silhouette, proportion, and the treatment of negative space all contribute to whether tension and compression read as legible structure rather than decoration.
A substance that holds watercolor pigment in suspension, generally gum arabic or synthetic glycol.
Creation and preparation of three-dimensional forms for visualization, animation, or fabrication.
A value structure dominated by dark values, creating a somber or dramatic effect.
Left-handed 4-strut tensegrity antiprism with left-handed helical cross-cables.
The central line about which a tensegrity structure is organized. In many prisms this axis aligns with the 'vertical' direction of stacking, setting both structural hierarchy and visual reading.
A configuration in which alternating modules have opposite chirality. Antichiral patterns can produce toroidal, wave-like, or lattice forms with global balance even when each unit is individually twisted.
A practitioner who works with rigor, accumulated skill, and high internal standards, but for the love of the work rather than professional advancement.
Distinguished from hobbyist by level of commitment and skill; from professional by motivation and livelihood.
From Latin 'amare' (to love). Historically respected category, now often undervalued due to semantic drift of 'amateur' toward 'unskilled'.
Simulation of light, image synthesis, and multi-pass assembly into finalized imagery.
Dropping a new wet color into an existing wash to blend directly on the paper, creating interesting variations in color or tonal value rather than pre-mixing on a palette.
The term "Abstract" is used to describe a painting that is non-representational. i.e the subject matter of the painting is not about the depiction of reality.
Structured overview compiled by ChatGPT, November 4, 2025.
A scheme covering common terminology used across contemporary digital fine art workflows from concept to output.
Relationships are indicative (not exhaustive) and aim to aid discovery across adjacent practices.
The process of preparing the surface to receive the painting medium.
The connectivity pattern of cables and struts independent of their specific geometry.
Flexible, high-bit-depth raster format favored for archival and print workflows.
A species of weasel from Siberia. Tail hairs from the male are used to make the most highly prized and expensive watercolor brushes.
the art of drawing solid objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point.
your point of view--how you see, understand, and interpret things, shaped by your experiences, beliefs, or location
Number of compression members (discontinuous compression) in the configuration.
Categories describing different orientations toward artistic practice.
Hybrid concepts: critical conversation + ChatGPT critique, 2026-03-10
Merged SKOS concepts from two sources: (1) concepts_20260309.ttl derived from a critical dialogue (Claude), and (2) concepts_20260310.ttl derived from a ChatGPT critique of Saint Mark's. Overlap in compositional structure has been resolved by retaining the richer definition in each case. New organizing parents and granular children from ChatGPT have been adopted where they add genuine structure without redundancy. See editorial notes for derivation decisions.
Iron oxide earth; warm to deep red-brown; stable and widely used since prehistory.
Assignment of per-vertex influence values that determine how bones deform a mesh.
High-resolution, pigment-based inkjet print on archival media for fine art reproduction.
The perceived heaviness or importance of an element within a composition, determined by size, color, value, position, and density.
Sodium aluminosilicate sulfur chromophore from lapis lazuli; historic blue with characteristic warm masstone and reddish violet bias in tints.
Rubbed on dry watercolor paint, a Magic Eraser acts as fine sandpaper to lift and trap pigment, useful for effects such as creating a horizon line with deeper color below and lighter color above.
A tensegrity system deliberately designed for controlled motion or reconfiguration. Used in responsive architecture, adaptive mechanisms, and time-based sculpture.
Mathematical operations that combine layer pixels to achieve compositing effects.
a parallel rewriting system and a type of formal grammar. An L-system consists of an alphabet of symbols that can be used to make strings, a collection of production rules that expand each symbol into some larger string of symbols, an initial "axiom" string from which to begin construction, and a mechanism for translating the generated strings into geometric structures. L-systems were introduced and developed in 1968 by Aristid Lindenmayer, a Hungarian theoretical biologist and botanist at the University of Utrecht..
Final adjustments after rendering: color grading, sharpening, denoise, and stylistic effects.
Creating skeletal controls and constraints to deform and animate a model.
A horizontal zone at the base of a composition that separates the viewer's implied space from the depicted gathering or social field. Functions as both an entry point for the eye and a structural hinge between observer and scene.
Source: 20260309. Broader updated to SpatialCompositionStrategy. Identified as a recurring compositional habit across multiple paintings: Alhambra courtyard (dark pavement), Seoul palace (sandy ground with shadows), St. Mark's (acqua alta reflections). ChatGPT's EdgeObserverViewpoint discarded as a thinner restatement.
Can manifest as empty pavement, shadow pattern, or reflective water. When the threshold zone becomes the primary optical subject, it transitions from structural device to conceptual center.
to bring into accord, harmony, or sympathetic relationship; adjustment or alignment.
This refers to the brightness or dullness of a particular color. A color's saturation, brightness or strength
Links a tensegrity configuration to its chirality value (left-handed or right-handed).
A short-haired brush with a straight edge. Useful for laying down washes of all kinds and particularly suited to hard-edged shapes such as mountains, tree trunks, buildings, and figures.
The pool of water that forms at the base of a wash. Maintaining the bead is essential for a consistent wash, as streaks form if it dries out too quickly.
A watercolor painting technique that intentionally incorporates non-watercolor media ? such as gouache, acrylic ink, casein, ink, pastel, or collage ? to extend the range of surface effects or exploit contrast between transparent and opaque, wet and dry, or fluid and fixed media.
A technique combining ink pen drawing with watercolor washes. Traditionally done with dip pens but also achievable with markers, biros, or Rapidograph-style pens.
An approach to representation that captures how things appear to human vision rather than their objective physical properties.
Distinguished from photorealism; emphasizes the experience of seeing over mechanical reproduction.
consists of pigment mixed with gum arabic, glycerin and a wetting agent
A-Z Glossary Of Watercolor Terms (article)
A 3-strut tensegrity antiprism with two parallel triangular vertex rings, mutually rotated; a continuous cable network forms two 3-edge rings and three helical cross-cables, stabilizing three isolated struts in self-stress.
Chiral: realizable in left-handed or right-handed forms depending on ring rotation; typical cable layout = 2n (ring) + n (helical) with n=3.
Texture encoding per-pixel normals to fake small-scale relief without altering geometry.
Descriptions of the sense of twist in a tensegrity prism or module. A right-handed prism twists clockwise when viewed from above. Alternating handedness can produce symmetrical towers or balanced toroidal forms.
A clearly defined boundary between adjacent areas, created by painting onto dry paper or allowing previous washes to dry completely.
A canvas similar to oil painting canvas but treated with Gesso to accept water-based paints.
Light drawing or transfer, masking fluid placement, planning hard and soft edges.
The more the pencil dictates, the less the wash can discover. Let paint lead whenever possible.
Keep lines minimal; think scaffolding, not blueprint. Mask selectively to preserve crucial highlights.
An opaque water-based paint similar to watercolor but significantly more opaque; can be applied thick or thin.
A gradual transition between areas with no distinct boundary, typically achieved through wet-into-wet application.
The property of a structure being non-superimposable on its mirror image. In tensegrity prisms, chirality defines whether the twist between upper and lower bases is right-handed or left-handed. Opposite chiralities can influence torque, stability, and the visual rhythm of the structure.
Architect and inventor who coined the term 'tensegrity' and advanced its theoretical foundations.
The system of struts that do not touch each other but are stabilized by the surrounding tension network.
Lifting, soft scrubbing, and re-glazing to unify; remove masking; resolve value hierarchy.
This is where the painting often clicks: the hierarchy becomes legible and the mood locks in.
Use lifting to reclaim light and re-glazes to bind passages into coherent atmosphere.
Evaluation in art is the process of assessing the value, quality, or significance of a work of art. It involves analyzing the work's techniques, elements, and overall impact. Evaluation can help to understand the cultural relevance, effectiveness, and artistic intention of a work. An artistic evaluation tends to focus on a more subjective judgment of an artwork's overall quality, meaning and impact
A reference to the representation of things found in nature.
A compositional organization in which the picture plane is structured as stacked horizontal layers or registers, each carrying a distinct visual identity: foreground ground plane, human activity band, architectural frame, upper atmospheric field. Produces a decorative surface pattern alongside implied depth.
Source: 20260309. Broader updated from the:Composition to the:SpatialCompositionStrategy. ChatGPT's SpatialBanding discarded as redundant with this concept.
Related to Byzantine and medieval mosaic register composition, and to the organization of narrative friezes on architectural facades. Distinguished from strict tonal stratification by its emphasis on social and spatial layering rather than purely tonal depth.
Software and computational utilities used in digital 3D sculpture practice.
Art criticism is the analysis and evaluation of art, including its significance in art history and its communication with the audience
A technique used in watercolor painting.
Standard orientations and proportions of the picture plane.
Apply paint to an area then, while wet, press a piece of parchment paper onto the surface. Areas in full contact with the wash and areas held off by parchment bubbles produce a contrasting texture when lifted. Experiment with wetness levels; crumpled plastic cling wrap is an alternative.
A vertical stacking of prisms, often forming a repeating module.
The selection and organization of colors an artist uses, either for a specific work or as a characteristic practice.
A condition where the structure's internal forces can be calculated purely from equilibrium equations.
Sticky paper tape used to mask off a white border or preserve areas of a painting.
Terms describing perceptual, aesthetic, and generative aspects of tensegrity as art and design practice.
Separately computed image channels (for example, diffuse, specular, shadow) for flexible compositing.
Commitment to accurate representation of what is seen, as opposed to invention or idealization.
Applying a thin wash of color over a fully dried layer. The transparency of watercolor creates a third color optically or darkens the existing one.
Real time viewing and interaction for sculpture models in browsers or kiosks.
Covers viewer components, environment maps, and performance considerations.
Dull, earthy neutral colors resulting from mixing a color with too much of its complement (e.g. red mixed with green).
Light, economical under-drawing; occasional masking only for tight highlights or architectural edges.
You paint best when the drawing invites discovery rather than dictates outcome.
Use gesture for organics and sparing line for architecture; let paint do most of the describing.
Lossy compressed raster format balancing file size and quality; not ideal for heavy edits.
The process of producing a creative work using digital media.
A 4-strut tensegrity antiprism with two parallel square vertex rings in relative rotation; cables form two 4-edge rings and four helical cross-cables to stabilize four isolated struts.
Chiral: left-handed or right-handed according to the sense of ring rotation; canonical cable topology totals 3n for n=4.
A practitioner who derives income from artistic work and/or identifies publicly as an artist.
Lead antimonate yellow; historical warm opaque yellow with characteristic orange cast.
Category head for all sculpture related concepts in this scheme.
Rule driven modeling and numerical solving to maintain geometric or structural relationships.
The depiction of water surfaces and their reflective properties.
A challenging subject requiring understanding of both transparency and reflection, often testing an artist's full technical range.
11x15 in on 300 lb cold-press as default; 9x12 in on 140 lb occasionally; tape edges, test swatches; proceed to immediate wet work.
This robust surface lets you paint decisively; it forgives correction without dulling the paper's breath.
300 lb supports assertive lifting and multi-glaze sequences without fatigue.
Proprietary scene format supporting meshes, rigs, animation, and materials.
The deliberate treatment of transitions between forms, ranging from hard (sharp) to soft (diffused) to lost (merged).
Policies and conversions (ICC) that keep colors consistent across devices and media.
A sequence of frames mapping intended color and lighting beats across a narrative or series.
(T)he digital age has ushered in an era of "algorithmicism"--the increasingly steadfast belief that everything in the world, from business processes to financial markets to interpersonal interactions and more, can be analyzed and broken down into discrete model that are representable and manipulable by mathematical/digital processes.
An area of demonstrated competence and reliability in an artist's practice.
What the artist does well and can depend upon.
Right-handed 5-strut tensegrity antiprism with right-handed helical cross-cables.
Iron oxide and manganese oxide earth; cool dark brown with greenish cast.
The order in which a painter addresses different passages of a watercolor: which areas are laid in first, which are held in reserve, and which are completed last. In watercolor, sequence is partly determined by wet/dry requirements and partly by the artist's conceptual priorities.
Sequence decisions encode conceptual priorities: beginning with the most technically demanding or conceptually central passage differs meaningfully from conventional dark-to-light or background-to-foreground ordering.
When a foreground object's edge matches the tonal value of its background, the edge becomes indiscernible even though the brain still perceives it. Used deliberately to suggest movement or depth. A found edge is the reverse effect.
The internal tension or compression introduced into a tensegrity structure before any external load is applied.
Connectivity pattern and flow of polygons affecting deformation and efficiency.
Painting wet paint onto dry paper, producing crisp, hard-edged shapes. Also known as a glaze or layering wash.
Technique or style: The technique or style used to create the artwork Subject matter: The subject matter of the artwork Inspiration: What inspired the artist to create the piece Meaning: What the artwork means to the artist Context: The historical background, location, and time of the artwork
A tension member intentionally allowed to stretch under load. Elastic tendons are common in soft tensegrity and biomimetic models, where controlled compliance is desirable.
Process philosophies, organizational methods, and computational paradigms guiding production.
Layer that applies tonal or color operations non-destructively to layers beneath it.
Range between darkest and brightest reproducible tones in an image or device.
Painting processes are the steps combining materials, techniques, tools and related concepts to produce a painting or to complete a part of the production of a painting.
Dark accents, crisp passages, calligraphic marks, and controlled lifting to refine edges and emphasis.
Late, minimal, and precise accents keep the painting fresh and prevent overworking.
Place the sharpest edges and deepest darks only where they serve the focal path.
The process of determining the equilibrium geometry of a tensegrity given its topology and element properties.
Core ideas that define what tensegrity is and how it attains stability through balanced tension and compression.
Clean borders, archival matting and framing under glazing; consistent documentation and metadata capture.
Your archival discipline supports the public reading of the work and its long-term care.
Per-pixel opacity data used to control transparency during compositing.
Paper type; a heavy-weight, slow-to-absorb paper featuring a very smooth finish; manufactured using steam, heat and/or pressure to to help the fibres (wood pulp and/or cotton) nestle very close together, making the paper very slow to absorb; sized for water media.
A stable stand, supporting an artist's painting .
Transparent glazes for form and atmosphere; strong use of negative painting; edges moving in and out of focus.
This is your voice zone: where abstraction and depiction negotiate in real time.
Favor transparency; let value and edge quality shape the form more than contour lines.
A traditional wide, short-haired, long-handled Japanese brush with stitched goat hair, useful for natural-looking foliage and skies. Popularized by artist/author Ron Ranson.
The perceived warmth (toward red/yellow) or coolness (toward blue/green) of a color, used to create spatial depth and atmospheric effects.
Colors in the blue, green, and violet range that appear to recede visually and evoke coolness.
A gum-arabic based watercolor binding medium.
gum arabic powder, distilled water, glycerine (humectant), essential oil of clove, essential oild of rosemary
1. Dissolve the gum Arabic powder: Dissolve two-part gum Arabic powder in four parts warm distilled water. Pour slowly and stir continuously for 10-15 minutes. 2. Add Humectant: Add one part of honey or glycerine (humectant) into the binder mixture at this stage. 3. Natural preservative: Add a couple of drops of essential oil (clove/rosemary) to the binder solution. 4. Let the solution stand for 24-48hrs to allow complete hydration of the gum arabic particles before use.
Implements and software used to create, manipulate, join, or finish sculpture.
A watercolor technique in which large architectural surfaces are constructed through layered washes of mixed warm and cool pigments, producing chromatically varied but tonally unified stone or wall surfaces.
Adopted from ChatGPT source as a child of ChromaticVariationInWash. Narrows the broader concept to architectural application specifically.
Structural textures preferred: drybrush for architecture, granulation for botanical surfaces, restrained spatter.
Texture supports breath and structure; it should never upstage the value design.
Let pigment separation and paper tooth do the work before reaching for effects.
The rough, untrimmed edges of certain brands of watercolor paper.
Export, Optimization and File Preparation (.glb) (RS)
Consolidate, bake transforms, reduce heavy meshes, confirm PBR maps, export glb with RDF hooks for cataloging.
The quieter this step is, the better. Clean exports and stable metadata keep the experience consistent across platforms, so curatorial attention remains on the sculpture and not on file idiosyncrasies.
Selective textures such as drybrush, spatter, and granulation to support form and focal contrasts.
Texture reads best when it rides on good value design. Without that, it becomes noise.
Use texture to amplify structure, not to decorate. Favor pigment behavior and paper surface over tricks.
Fabriano Artistico Grana Fina cold press
A cold-press watercolor paper in sheets.
An opinion of a work of art is a personal interpretation or judgment about its aesthetic qualities, meaning, and impact, based on an individual's subjective experience and perspective when viewing the piece; essentially, how someone feels about the artwork and what they think it conveys, which can vary greatly from person to person.
Advanced Watercolor Techniques (article)
Once you have mastered the basic skills of color mixing, applying washes, softening edges, dropping in color etc. there are a number of more advanced watercolor techniques you can incorporate into your work.
The periodic tidal flooding of Venice's Piazza San Marco and surrounding areas, producing shallow standing water that reflects architecture, figures, and sky. A recurring subject in Venetian painting that combines documentary, atmospheric, and symbolic registers.
The depth distribution of acqua alta governs crowd behavior: figures cluster where water is shallow enough to keep feet dry, and the crowd's edge maps the depth threshold. This can be encoded compositionally rather than described.
Basic lead carbonate; historic staple white with high opacity and warm tone.
A mathematical system for representing three-dimensional space on a flat surface using converging lines and vanishing points.
People, theories, and framing ideas that shaped the development and cultural reading of tensegrity.
A compositional risk in which the primary narrative or visual activity is concentrated in the central horizontal band rather than anchored at the base or directed toward the top. Avoided by many painters due to risk of static or split composition; effective when the middle band functions as a chromatic membrane linking contrasting upper and lower registers.
Source: 20260309. No ChatGPT equivalent. Succeeds when figures absorb and transmit color from both the ground plane below and the architectural field above, making the crowd a visual intermediary rather than a static centerpiece.
Sculptor who first realized tensegrity structures in physical form, notably works such as 'Needle Tower' and 'X-Piece'.
The natural precipitation of some pigments when water is added, producing a granular, speckled texture. Not indicative of poor quality or misuse; only certain colors granulate. Granulation medium can be applied to a dry or wet area, or mixed directly with paint, to introduce this fine-grained particle effect.
Preparation for display, print, archival, or distribution, including file formats and color management.
The technique of sustaining large architectural or ground-plane surfaces through subtle color shifts within a single value family rather than flat wash or detailed line modeling. Surfaces appear to breathe and absorb surrounding light rather than presenting as inert background.
Source: 20260309. Requires confidence in wash timing and pigment behavior; magnifies mistakes on large surfaces. Distinguished from granulation as a deliberate color rather than texture strategy. ChatGPT's ChromaticSurfaceModeling discarded as a thinner restatement of this concept.
the effect whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from different positions, e.g. through the viewfinder and the lens of a camera.
the apparent shift in an object's position when viewed from different locations
A Mat is a 'Window' of card that sits inside a picture frame between the glass and the painting. It has the aesthetic function of creating a clean border around your painting and the practical function of separating the surface of the painting from the glass.
Robots that use tensegrity frameworks for mobility, flexibility, and shock absorption.
Presentation, Interactive Viewing and Contextualization (RS)
Model-viewer as part of the work; environment presets as expressive devices; documentation to frame attention as medium.
Presentation completes the circuit. By inviting the viewer to orbit and re-orient, the sculpture unfolds as a timed experience. Attention is not a byproduct; it is a structural material on par with light and metal.
Liquid latex used to preserve the white of the paper and to create textures
A stable stand, with an angled board that supports an artist's painting .
A six-color palette comprising three warm and three cool primaries (e.g. Cadmium Red, New Gamboge, Ultramarine, Alizarin Crimson, Lemon Yellow, Cerulean Blue). Provides the widest range of warm and cool color-mixing options with the fewest pigments.
Mix table salt with water before painting, then apply the salt-water wash and paint colors into it; the salt causes pigment to disperse more broadly. Experiment with different salt-to-water ratios for varied results.
The loss of stability in a compression member when the compressive force exceeds a critical threshold. Buckling sets an upper limit on how slender tensegrity struts may be before failure or large deformation.
The brightness or hue of a color. Paint straight from the tube is at maximum chroma.
Buckminster Fuller's theoretical framework describing how systems gain stability and order through the interaction of independent components; tensegrity exemplifies this principle.
The use of large language model systems to generate formal art criticism, compositional analysis, or developmental feedback on visual artworks.
AI-generated criticism tends toward structural completeness and rhetorical fluency at the expense of genuine risk-taking, hierarchy of observations, or authentic perceptual engagement. Useful as a scaffold or as a prompt for the artist's own reflection rather than as authoritative evaluation.
Rule- and node-based methods that generate results from inputs and parameters, enabling reuse.
The quality of emitting or reflecting light; in watercolor, often achieved through transparent washes over white paper.
Define structural logic, tensegrity intent, figure-to-structure relations, geometry family, and expressive aims.
This stage frames meaning before any mesh is committed. Decisions about tensegrity, figure orientation, and geometric language act as constraints that later steps elaborate rather than correct. Clarity here shortens the entire project.
An aspect of practice where growth is possible; a challenge or limitation that reappears across works.
Framed constructively as opportunity rather than deficit.
Selective lifting and edge softening on heavy paper; re-glazing to unify; remove masking; finalize value hierarchy.
This is where your paintings often lock: the structure clarifies and the mood coheres.
If a passage feels overbuilt, lift lightly and re-glaze to rejoin the painting's atmosphere.
Sculptural Modeling of Figures and Form Elements (RS)
Model figures as agents of tension; pose to express force vectors; refine silhouette and negative space for structural read.
Figures neither dominate nor decorate; they participate. The success of this step is measured by whether a pose clarifies the force diagram of the whole. If the pose can be swapped without loss, the modeling is not yet specific enough.
Rubbing alcohol applied to wet watercolor paint repels and displaces pigment, creating lighter areas, textures, and effects such as bubbles, swirling patterns, or abstract designs.
Previewing how an image will reproduce on a specific device or substrate before final output.
A configuration that achieves maximum apparent stability or span with the fewest necessary members. The term highlights tensegrity's economy of means as an aesthetic as well as an engineering goal.
A system where the geometry itself resists loads efficiently, of which tensegrity is an example.
Depictions of plants, flowers, and garden settings as primary subject matter.
A round brush with hairs twice the usual length, ideal for long, continuous thin lines. Available in small sizes only (typically up to #3). Liners and riggers are functionally identical despite the differing names used by manufacturers.
A manual, mouth-operated paint spraying tool that produces a fine mist, similar in effect to an airbrush or aerosol spray can.
Sometimes referred to as an atomiser sprayer
Opaque water-based paint such as gouache or tempera. Used to add solid color to transparent watercolors, and opaque white is used to restore highlights in muddy or over-saturated areas.
A process used in the production of a painting as a creative work.
An acrylic-based primer with controlled absorbency that enables watercolor painting on non-traditional surfaces such as printer paper, thin card, wood, or stone.
Records describing the work, its provenance, process, and technical details.
Lifting pigment from a wet wash using crumpled paper towel or absorbent tissue in a soft, predictable way. Rotate and re-crumple the paper to avoid repeating patterns. Effective for lifting clouds from a wet sky wash.
The steps performed in the creation of a computer graphics creative work.
Waterproof ink applied to paper, allowed to almost dry, then scrubbed back with a water spray and rough bristle brush, producing interesting, unpredictable textures and shapes. Permanent once applied; best used before adding watercolor washes.
Gently scraping dried (or partially dried) paint off the paper using a razor blade, craft knife, sandpaper, cardboard, or credit card to reveal subtle details, irregular textures, or restored white space.
Design approach driven by adjustable parameters to explore families of solutions.
Single coherent atmospheric washes establishing temperature shifts and a global light scaffold.
When this pass is confident, later passages feel inevitable rather than labored.
Elephant Ear: warm vegetal gradient in one pass. Court of Myrtles: cool architectural field unified early.
A curated collage of references establishing aesthetic, palette, material, and lighting cues.
Colored acrylic ink applied to watercolor causes pigment separation similar to oil in water. Other high-pigment watercolor alternatives such as Brusho produce comparable results. The outcome is a mixed-media creation with a distinctive dispersed appearance.
Painting with a damp sea sponge dipped in watercolor produces a highly varied, rough texture on the paper.
The category or type of content depicted in a work of art.
Left-handed 3-strut tensegrity antiprism: upper ring rotated relative to the lower so that helical cross-cables trace a left-handed twist.
Watercolor paper sold as multiple sheets glued around all edges, minimizing cockling and eliminating the need to stretch paper.
A deliberately constrained selection of colors, typically three to six, from which all mixtures are derived.
Often used as a learning exercise or to achieve unified color harmony.
Named classes, modules, and families of tensegrity configurations and how they repeat or scale.
A book of swatches for all the paint colors in the palette. The swatch book paper is 140 lb. cold press.
The techniques by which a two-dimensional picture plane creates the illusion of three-dimensional space extending into the distance.
A composition oriented with the height greater than the width.
Iron(III) hexacyanoferrate; first modern synthetic blue (early 18th c.); deep greenish-blue undertone and strong tinting strength.
The condition where all forces in a tensegrity structure balance so that it is stable and motionless under given loads.
The depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view with its elements arranged into a coherent composition.
This is a rather flat scheme. Mostly an operational aid.
All google Keep note instances for digital artworks belong to this scheme.
A thesaurus aligned with the CWVA creative-process domain ontology for the visual arts
Thesaurus for the process in the Visual Arts
This thesaurus provides a vocabulary for describing process modeled by the CWVA ontology, http://visualartsdna.org/model/. Visit visualartsdna.org for more information.
This thesaurus provides a vocabulary for describing data modeled by the CWVA ontology, http://visualartsdna.org/model/. Visit visualartsdna.org for more information.
Thesaurus for process in the Visual Arts
Terms describing twist, handedness, rotational order, and other geometric/symmetry properties of tensegrity structures.
Binary form of glTF optimized for compact delivery of PBR-ready 3D assets on the web.
The process includes hydrating paint cakes, creating mixes and dilutions. The process can include creating new watercolor paint from raw pigment and watercolor binder solution. This involves mulling the paints and binder together. The mixture is then allowed to dry forming a 'cake'.
A value structure dominated by light values, creating a bright, luminous effect.
Proportional relationship of width to height that determines framing and composition.
small cakes of watercolor paint that come in half-pan or whole-pan sizes
A condition in which one half of a structure is the mirror image of the other. Pure tensegrity prisms are typically chiral and therefore lack reflection symmetry, unless paired with an oppositely handed mate.
Basic copper carbonate green mineral; granular particles give characteristic pale, slightly bluish green.
Depictions of buildings, monuments, and built environments as primary subject matter.
Pool of networked machines distributing render jobs for speed and scale.
Workflow approach that preserves source data via layers, masks, and parametric nodes.
Depictions of inanimate objects, typically arranged on a tabletop.
Constrains a layer's visibility to the shape of another layer below.
A point where cables and struts connect, transmitting forces between elements.
Triangulated surface format commonly used in additive manufacturing; no color or materials.
A band of human figures positioned between contrasting spatial systems ? such as a reflective foreground surface and an architectural backdrop ? functioning as a visual and chromatic hinge linking the two domains. Figures absorb and transmit color from both adjacent registers.
Adopted from ChatGPT source. Definition lightly expanded to include the chromatic transmission role identified in conversation.
The presence of a distinct, risk-taking perspective in art criticism that makes unexpected observations, establishes hierarchies of importance, and demonstrates genuine perceptual engagement with the work rather than formal structural analysis alone.
Distinguished from technically accurate but voiceless criticism by its willingness to prioritize some observations over others, to be surprised, and to revise positions when corrected by the artist. The absence of critical voice is a characteristic limitation of AI-generated criticism.
Non-destructive technique to reveal or hide parts of a layer using grayscale control.
Named physical components of a tensegrity system and how they interact to carry load.
Torn cartridge paper placed on the painting; the exposed area is wiped with a damp brush or sponge to lift pigment. Works best with sedimentary, non-staining colors. Straight-edged paper can also be used for formal, geometric tonal changes.
Colors are divided into cool and warm. Colors that lean towards Red/Yellow are considered to be warm colors and colors that lean towards Blue/Green are classified as cool.
Presentation, Interactive Viewing and Contextualization
Deploy in model-viewer, tune tone mapping and exposure, set environment presets, document concept and viewing logic.
Interaction is part of the medium. Allow rotation and context to reveal the work over time, but maintain a disciplined lighting and exposure envelope so the sculpture does not become a lighting demo.
Packaging and distributing models and media for archival, review, or exhibition.
Includes glTF, USD, and related formats and manifests.
Encodings for storing and exchanging raster, vector, and 3D data.
Paint that is applied to a canvas or panel in quantities that make it stand out from the surface.
Paper choice and prep, taping or stretching, palette layout, water containers, test swatches.
A disciplined prep step protects spontaneity: fewer mechanical problems means freer painting.
Heavier sheets (for example, 300 lb) reduce cockling and support assertive wet-in-wet work.
Terms related to the creation of sculpture.
Concept scheme for sculpture creation, tools, materials, and practice specific digital 3D terms.
A surface for mixing paint, typically with wells or depressions to prevent paint from running. Best watercolor palettes are pure white porcelain. Also refers to an artist's chosen color scheme or selection of colors.
Cling wrap arranged over a wet wash and left until fully dry produces fairly predictable rock-like textures.
The color wheel is a visual representation of the colors of the visible spectrum in order of Temperature laid out in the form of a circle. Color wheels can be useful to artists as they show the relationship of colors to each other. Color wheels can be used to develop color schemes.
An inexpensive Chinese-style brush with a bamboo handle and natural hair (often squirrel), suited to loose, painterly strokes such as natural-looking foliage and skies.
A set of internal forces that maintains equilibrium without any external load.
Late, selective sharpening; clean transparent darks; calligraphic marks confined to focal zones.
Placed sparingly, your darks operate like a signature: necessary, unmistakable, and final.
Aim for the minimum number of hard edges needed to seal the focal path.
Carbonized animal bone containing hydroxyapatite; slightly warmer undertone than lamp black.
Creating imagery through a series of dots applied with a brush tip; dimension is built by layering dots in various hues to create light and shadow, allowing colors to mix optically. Traditionally ideal for miniature-scale work.
Coordinated sequence of tools, data formats, and handoffs moving work from concept to delivery.
Embedded technical and rights information enabling attribution, search, and workflow automation.
An architectural tensegrity system used to span distances with minimal material.
Ordinary, local, or traditional buildings constructed without formal architectural design.
Examples include barns, farmhouses, rural structures.
Small, thumbnail-sized paint containers that slot into portable trays, most often used for painting in sketchbooks and outdoors.
Mercuric sulfide red, natural or synthetic; brilliant warm red with historic darkening issues in some conditions.
A flexible or tensile element that resists stretching forces and connects the structure's nodes.
The most commonly used type of watercolour paper; a heavy weight; absorbent paper featuring a pronounced toothy finish and sized to accept watermedia (see; sizing).Highest quality cold pressed papers may be hand-made and will contain 100% cotton fibres; they're loved for their irregular rough texture and reliable performance and absorbency
Design and verification activities for tension and compression systems where compression members do not touch and the network is in self stress.
Includes topology selection, routing, parameter sweeps, and solver assisted self stress search.
Grayscale image encoding distance from the camera, used for depth-of-field and atmospheric effects.
Memory-driven scenes with light in motion; abstract passages inside representational subjects; small value studies as needed to stabilize focal energy before paint.
Your strongest starts happen when composition and value hierarchy are decided in miniature, so big washes can stay bold and un-fussy.
When a subject risks over-control, a 1 to 3 inch value thumbnail clarifies the sharpest edges and deepest darks.
Dull, muted grays and browns mixed by combining three evenly spaced color-wheel colors or complementary pairs.
Materials, Light Logic and Rendering Setup
Select materials, control reflectance, choose HDRI environments, and configure lighting to reveal tension and form.
Materials and light are not afterthoughts. Reflectance and HDRI selection can either collapse subtle tension lines or make them sing. Treat this step as a sculptural decision made with photons.
A small sketch or painting produced in preparation for the creation of a larger work.
Uneven undulations or ridges that form when watercolor paper gets wet, causing painting problems. Minimized by stretching the paper, using heavier paper (140lb/300gsm or above), or using a watercolor block.
Mounting, matting, framing under glazing; documentation, metadata, archival storage conditions.
A strong frame and accurate documentation reinforce the painting's authority and provenance.
Use archival mats and UV-protective glazing; document pigments, paper, and process notes.
The distribution of visual weight within a composition to achieve equilibrium, whether symmetrical or asymmetrical.
To spread over an area with paint in an aerosol form.
All KeepNote instances for painting belong to this scheme.
A substance added to watercolor paint to produce effects not achievable with water alone, such as texture, gloss, or glitter.
A natural, non-toxic gum from acacia tree sap used as the binder in watercolor paint. Added to paint to increase viscosity and intensify color; diluted with water and applied to paper as a sealant to reduce absorbency, or applied over a finished painting as a varnish.
A compositional structure in which the lower portion of a picture echoes or mirrors the upper portion through water reflections, creating two competing but related visual systems: the solid architectural reality above and its optical reinterpretation below.
Source: 20260309. Broader updated to OpticalCompositionStrategy. ChatGPT's ReflectiveSpatialSymmetry covers the same ground with a thinner definition and is discarded.
Distinguished from simple symmetrical balance; here the lower register transforms the upper into color fragments and broken strokes, approaching abstraction while remaining referential.
The pleasing arrangement of colors based on their relationships on the color wheel or through repetition and variation.
Quite simply, a hue is a color. This is independent of it's intensity or brightness. A color's common name (for example, cadmium red)
A cold-press watercolor paper in sheets with an extra rough surface.
A dry brush technique used to lift paint from or add color to an area of the surface
Sketching the intended composition on the substrate before applying paint. Pencil lines may be lightly erased after blocking in with paint or left in place.
Yellow-brown iron oxide earth; semi-transparent and stable.
A commonly used watercolor brush with hairs tapering to a fine point. Highly versatile: suitable for washes, fine details, and broad strokes.
Simulation of indirect light transport via interreflections and color bleeding.
A paint made from combining gum arabic watercolor medium with a dry pigment color using a muller to create a smooth paste which is stored in a pan and allowed to dry. The pigment is identified by the label name and brand, and the binder is identified by material.
The specific hue chosen to represent shadows in a painting.
Shadow color choice significantly affects a painting's overall mood and luminosity.
passages are left economical while focal areas receive full attention. a design principle that emphasizes using only the necessary elements to communicate a subject or feeling effectively. It is the practice of achieving maximum impact with minimal descriptive details, colors, or lines.
Open, publicly shared urban or ceremonial space ? plazas, palace forecourts, temple grounds ? where monumental architecture frames ordinary human activity. A recurring subject type in which everyday presence inhabits spaces historically associated with power, religion, or ceremony.
The tension between monumental civic framework and unremarkable daily activity is a productive subject for watercolor, which naturally captures both structural permanence and atmospheric transience.
A 5-strut tensegrity antiprism with two parallel pentagonal vertex rings in relative rotation; cables form two 5-edge rings and five helical cross-cables to stabilize five isolated struts.
Chiral: left-handed or right-handed variants; canonical cable topology totals 3n for n=5.
A tensegrity configuration with two parallel n-gon vertex rings rotated relative to each other, where discontinuous compression members span between rings and a continuous cable network links each vertex to two adjacent vertices on the opposite ring, yielding a chiral, self-stressed system.
For an n-strut tensegrity antiprism under this node: vertices = 2n; struts = n; cables = 3n (comprised of 2n ring cables + n helical cross-cables). Chirality is determined by the sense of relative rotation between vertex rings.
Describes topology independent of metric regularity; commonly realized as the canonical n-strut tensegrity prism (e.g., T3, T4, T5).
Conceptual Structuring and Formal Logic (RS)
Tension and attention as core; figure orientation inward or outward; icosahedral and prism logics; viewer rotation as part of meaning.
Concept drives everything here. The decision to let figures address each other instead of the viewer recasts the sculpture as a field the viewer must orbit and read. The work asks for time and rewards it with shifting alignments of force and gaze.
Balance achieved through mirror-like arrangement of elements on either side of a central axis.
Thick white gouache is painted to preserve white paper areas and allowed to dry, then completely covered with pigment ink. Once the ink dries, a water spray and bristle brush dissolve the gouache, revealing white paper beneath.
Terms describing mechanical behavior, analysis methods, and quantitative descriptors of tensegrity systems.
Salt or rice added to a wet color wash acts as a desiccant, absorbing pigment from the surrounding area and leaving lighter marks when dry and brushed off. Add after the sheen disappears from the wet wash for best results.
Terminology and frameworks used in the analysis and evaluation of visual art.
produced in a range of grit sizes and is used to remove material from surfaces, either to make them smoother or to remove a layer of material
The organization of value layers to imply depth, with distinct tonal zones corresponding to spatial planes.
A compositional structure in which upper and lower registers carry contrasting symbolic registers ? the transcendent or permanent above, the mundane or transient below ? creating a vertical hierarchy of meaning that mirrors theological or philosophical frameworks.
Example: St. Mark's Basilica facade, where Last Judgment mosaics preside over the crowd in the piazza, and acqua alta reflections dissolve both into impermanence. Three levels: sacred imagery above / human activity in the middle / optical dissolution below.
The arrangement and organization of visual elements within a picture plane.
Significant historical or cultural buildings such as palaces, churches, and public monuments.
Examples include the Alhambra, Venetian churches, Korean palaces.
Technical method or treatment; (excessive) use of or reliance on technical terms or procedure.
Integration of Figures and Structural System
Fuse figures with tensegrity elements, balance symmetry and chirality, and make tension lines legible as form.
This is the inflection point where the work either coheres or fragments. Integration must preserve structural clarity while allowing expressive deviations. Successful pieces feel inevitable at this stage, as if the figures could not be placed otherwise.
Natural madder lake from Rubia tinctorum roots; transparent cool red noted for delicate glazing and historical fading concerns.
A composition oriented with the width greater than the height.
A smooth finish multi-media drawing and painting surface.
Pixel-based images whose resolution directly determines detail and print size.
Image synthesis method tracing rays to compute reflection, refraction, and shadows.
An element introduced into a composition to imply story, time, or psychological context beyond what is literally depicted. Distinct from purely formal composition strategies in its intent to generate meaning through implied sequence or situation.
Source: 20260309. Examples: a figure mid-jump implying imminent transformation; sacred imagery above an oblivious crowd implying ironic juxtaposition of divine judgment and ordinary life.
Number of tension members (continuous tension) in the configuration.
Scoring the paper with a stylus or brush handle immediately after applying fresh paint; pigment naturally settles into the recessed lines, emphasizing the scored details.
Export, Optimization and File Preparation (.glb)
Consolidate scene, bake transforms, manage mesh density, verify PBR, export optimized glb with metadata hooks.
The goal is faithful portability. If a viewer or device changes, the sculpture should still read as intended. Tight asset hygiene prevents presentation layers from rewriting the work.
Watercolor techniques supporting development of texture in the painting
Domains in which tensegrity is applied or interpreted, including architecture, robotics, and biology.
The regular n-sided geometry forming the top and bottom faces of a tensegrity prism (for example, triangular for T3, square for T4). The number of sides defines the module family and repetition symmetries.
Religious, mythological, or culturally coded imagery embedded within a composition, whether as the primary subject or as secondary content within depicted architecture, mosaics, or decorative programs.
Source: 20260309. ChatGPT critique did not engage with iconographic dimension.
In plein-air or observational painting, iconographic content often enters the work through the depicted setting rather than the artist's primary intention, yet may function symbolically within the finished composition.
After a painting has been produced this is the process of preparing the painting for storage. This has tangible and intangible aspects, the latter includes capturing and perhaps publishing information about the newly completed work.
Pixel- and vector-based image creation and editing practices, tools, and constructs.
The generative process by which a tensegrity form emerges or evolves. The term is borrowed from biology and used in architecture and sculpture to frame tensegrity as something that 'grows' rather than something merely assembled.
A watercolor technique in which forms are defined by painting the space around them rather than the forms themselves.
Particularly effective for foliage, floral subjects, and complex overlapping forms where traditional positive painting would be difficult.
Hydrated iron oxide earth; staple yellow earth with greenish to orange undertones depending on source.
Small, rapid studies to iterate on composition, value grouping, and focal hierarchy.
Paint characteristic; the tendency for certain paint colours to allow light to pass through the paint film enabling layers beneath to be distinctly seen; the opposite of opaque.
the quality of the execution of a painting; an artist's characteristic handling of the paint. 'Manet's sensuous facture'
Painting outdoors; from the French "en plein air."
The placement of forms in front of one another to establish spatial relationships and depth.
Scraping pastel dust off a suitably colored pastel with a sharp blade into a wet wash. Works well with sedimentary pigments and a similar-colored pastel; test the pastel color against a dry patch of the wash first.
Computational Geometry and Parametric Construction (RS)
Generate prisms, icosahedra, toroids; chirality and inversion; solver checks; numeric sweeps; armatures for figure placement.
The computational step ensures clarity rather than complexity for its own sake. Chirality and scale sweeps become instruments for stating the piece more exactly, not for multiplying versions. The math lifts expression rather than constraining it.
A figure depicted in active movement ? jumping, running, gesturing widely ? within a composition of otherwise static or slowly moving figures. Introduces implied time and sequence into a scene, suggesting an imminent transformation of the depicted moment.
Source: 20260309. Example: a child mid-jump at the edge of flood water implies the still reflective surface is about to be shattered. The figure functions as a temporal hinge as much as a compositional accent.
Professional-grade paint formulated to resist chemical reactions from water, UV light, and oxygen exposure. Contains more pigment than student-grade paint, allowing greater medium manipulation with less color shift.
Right-handed 4-strut tensegrity antiprism with right-handed helical cross-cables.
Guides such as thirds, golden ratio, and dynamic symmetry aiding visual balance and flow.
A rigid element that carries compressive load and does not directly contact other struts.
The property by which a tensegrity prism, dome, or ring can be rotated about its axis by a certain angle and still appear identical. Rotational symmetry is often used to classify higher-order tensegrity assemblies.
The computational process of refining which members exist, how they connect, and how loads flow through them, in order to improve performance, efficiency, or aesthetic intent.
It involves painting wet-on-wet, directly onto the paper, often in one sitting, without letting layers dry completely. This technique can create vibrant colors and expressive brushstrokes. Alla prima aims for a fresh, immediate look with visible brushstrokes and blending of colors on the paper.
Constructing and organizing forms in a 3D environment, including part to part alignment and hierarchy.
Covers mesh, curve, surface, and rig based assemblies for sculpture scale and intent.
A compositional approach that organizes pictorial space through structural relationships among foreground, middle ground, and background elements.
Adopted from ChatGPT source as a useful organizing parent for banding, threshold, and frieze concepts. Preferred over the narrower 'spatial banding' as a top-level term.
An artistic assessment usually involves an objective analysis of technical skills, composition, and adherence to specific criteria, often used in educational settings to track progress or judge competency.
A wavy, uneven surface that occurs when water is applied to unstretched paper. Unlike backruns, buckling is never desirable and is never considered a happy accident; it is prevented by stretching the paper before painting.
An unexpected finding about pigment behavior, mixture, or interaction that occurs during the painting of a specific work and subsequently enters the artist's repertoire. Distinguished from planned technique by its accidental or exploratory origin.
Source: 20260309. Example: discovering during the St. Mark's facade that turquoise mixed with Indian red produces a luminous gray particularly suited to sunlit stonework.
Areas of watercolor paper intentionally left unpainted to represent the lightest values, exploiting the paper's inherent luminosity.
Distinguished from white gouache or lifting techniques; refers specifically to planning and preserving untouched paper.
A deformation mode in which the structure can change shape without stretching or compressing its members.
Total number of structural members (struts + cables) in the configuration.
Watercolor paint in tube form, squeezed onto a palette like toothpaste. The alternative to pan paint, in which the paint is solid and must be reactivated with water.
High-range panoramic image used as a light source and reflection environment in rendering.
The overall organization of light and dark areas within a composition.
Typically a gum-arabic based watercolor binding medium.
A thematic concern with the temporary, fragile, or dissolving nature of depicted subjects. In Venetian contexts, manifest through flood water that reflects and destabilizes the image of enduring monuments. Aligned with watercolor as a medium that resists correction and records the moment of making.
The medium and the subject reinforce each other: watercolor's irreversibility and luminous fragility make it a natural vehicle for subjects concerned with transience.
The angular displacement between the top and bottom polygons of a tensegrity prism. The twist angle directly determines chirality and overall form, and strongly influences stiffness and articulation between modules.
The process of turning a graphic representation of structured data into a creative work.
A flat, wide brush with short hairs, identical in shape to a Bright brush. Ideal for hard edges and square fields of colour; well suited to street-scapes and architectural subjects.
The span from the lightest light to the darkest dark in a composition.
Painting with a relatively dry brush that still delivers paint to the substrate, producing coarse, scratchy strokes that contrast with the smooth look of washes or blended paint.
Red, Blue and Yellow are called the Primary Colors because they cannot mixed from other colors but all colors can be mixed from them.
Brushes that contain animal hair such as squirrel, sable or goat
Texture driving geometric displacement at render time for true surface relief.
Collect paint on a brush, then rub the side of the brush across the paper so paint accumulates only on the peaks of the paper's uneven surface.
Formal definition of a device or working color space enabling consistent color reproduction.
A yellowish fluid from cow gall bladders, mixed with alcohol and used as a wetting agent in watercolor painting and paper marbling. A drop added to a wash improves flow and corrects uneven absorption, beading, or white specks.
Thesaurus for the Visual Arts, Tesegrity Terms
This thesaurus provides a vocabulary for describing data modeled by the CWVA ontology, http://visualartsdna.org/model/ related to Tensegrity. Visit visualartsdna.org for more information.
Thesaurus for the Visual Arts--Tensegrity
Textures, HDR environments, shaders, and parameter sets treated as working material.
Intent setting, subject selection, value structure, color family, thumbnails and value studies.
Decisions here save the painting later. A crisp value map prevents over-modeling and keeps the work luminous.
Use thumbnails or small value studies to establish a clear focal pathway before the first large wash.
Removing color from wet or re-wetted paint using a brush, paper towel, or tissue. A technique in its own right, not merely a correction method; forms the basis of subtractive painting. Lifting creates soft edges and reduces color intensity, leaving only undertones. Detailed lifts can be made with a slightly damp brush.
small spatula-style knife used to apply or remove paint, or to add texture
A Provider of art supplies either directly or indirectly to the public
Algorithm that smooths coarse meshes by iterative subdivision to create high-quality curvature.
Influences can be many and varied. Artists can be influenced by other artists, both past and present. An artist's background, journey, and experiences can shape their work. For example, an artist's early experiences of the visible world can be deeply woven into their subconscious and carry over into their creative process. Also, basic visual factors like symmetry, complexity, contrast, curvature, color, and lines can influence aesthetic experiences.
Is the British convention for referring to Cold Pressed watercolor paper, it simply means 'Not hot pressed'
The technique of preserving white paper areas in watercolor painting. Masking fluid (a rubbery liquid) is applied to paper and, once dry, can be painted over; when the paint dries, the fluid is removed by gentle rubbing and peeling, revealing the protected area beneath.
Chose to use 'masking' for the technique and 'masking fluid' for the material; however, 'masking' does not necessarily imply the use of masking fluid
Resolution-independent images defined by paths, fills, and strokes.
capture the energy, movement, and essence of a pose through quick, fluid, and expressive lines, focusing on the whole figure's action rather than details, often using a single "line of action" to convey flow from head to foot
primarily the observation of people in normal activities.
Prepare and issue the work of (a particular writer).
A tag used in Google Keep/Takeout to distinguish Keep notes intended for publication
Computational Geometry and Parametric Construction
Build primitives and constraints, encode tensegrity rules, run solver checks, and perform parametric transforms.
Here form becomes data. Parametric control and solver feedback ensure that variation does not drift away from the chosen logic. Outputs from this step should be clean enough to invite sculptural decisions, not fight them.
"Spatter" scatters small, controlled paint droplets across the surface, typically by flicking a loaded brush, producing a delicate effect. "Splatter" implies a larger, more chaotic distribution from a more forceful application.
The thickness of watercolor paper, expressed as the weight of 500 sheets in pounds (lbs) or in grams per square metre (gsm). Heavier paper is more expensive but more resistant to cockling.
Using opaque white water-based paint (such as Titanium White Gouache or Chinese White) to clean up muddy areas, restore white space, create highlights, or sharpen blurry edges. Widely practiced despite some traditionalists viewing it as unconventional.
Applying a new color before earlier applications have dried, allowing colors to blend without hard edges or sharp transitions. Only partially controllable.
The arrangement of visual elements to indicate their order of importance and guide the viewer's eye through the composition.
A set of concepts and categories in a subject area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them.
Calcined umber; stronger red-brown masstone with higher chroma than raw umber.
Canonical set of historically significant pigments used in artworks across periods and regions.
Embellish a basic graphic representation of data.
The atmospheric effect on the appearance of distant objects: as distance increases, contrast between object and background decreases, details become less distinct, colors desaturate, and hues shift toward the background color (typically bluish, or reddish near sunrise/sunset).
A compositional approach in which the organization of the painting is governed primarily by the behavior of light, reflection, or color perception rather than by descriptive spatial perspective.
Adopted from ChatGPT source. Provides useful parent for OpticalAbstraction, OpticalReflectionField, and ReflectiveSymmetry.
A brush similar to a Filbert but with a pointed tip; ideal for painting single-stroke flower petals and leaves.
The process of producing a basic graphic representation of structured data.
A tensegrity form in which compression members occupy positions consistent with icosahedral symmetry and are held solely by a continuous network of tension members so that compression members do not touch.
Use this concept for high symmetry tensegrity exemplars. Distinguish it from a purely geometric icosahedron without a tension compression partition. For instances, record member counts, routing, and intended symmetry group with dedicated properties in the data model.
Common didactic models use six struts with a surrounding cable net; member counts and cable routing may vary while preserving non touching compression, global self stress, and approximate icosahedral symmetry.
A hemispherical structure composed of struts and cables arranged for lightweight, stable enclosures.
A pen nib used to apply masking fluid, creating sharp edges and fine lines of resistance when watercolor is applied over the dried mask.
Left-handed 5-strut tensegrity antiprism with left-handed helical cross-cables.
Analytical and geometric vocabulary used to describe equilibrium, force states, and structural computation in tensegrity.
The dimension of artistic work occurring outside of active painting: thinking about subjects, problems, and possibilities during non-painting activity. Distinct from formal planning or sketching; a mode of continuous low-intensity engagement with creative questions.
Critical feedback, encounter with other works, and artist conversation all feed the contemplative practice without necessarily changing in-process decisions.
Synthetic fibers that behave similarly to natural hair brushes.
A watercolor wash in the presence of another material intended to affect the behavior of the wash
Pressing plastic wrap or fabric into wet paint to create a wide variety of textured effects.
Exploratory imagery that communicates ideas, tone, and direction before production assets are made.
A scheme containing all tensegrity terms. A controlled vocabulary of concepts related to tensegrity structures, analysis, fabrication, perception, and history.
Repeatable methods and procedures applied during creation and finishing.
Materials, Light Logic and Rendering Setup (RS)
Polished metal and high-clarity edges; HDRI sets to maximize luminous read; control temperature and shadow for force visibility.
Lighting articulates tension with the authority of a chisel. The choice of HDRI is not cosmetic: it is how the piece announces its line of force to the eye. Treat reflections as drawn lines that happen to be made of light.
Assembling multiple layers and passes into a final image, with grading and effects.
Lightly sanding a fully dry painting with fine sandpaper to produce a slightly weathered surface texture, which can then be adjusted with further washes.
The ratio of internal force to member length. Force density is widely used in computational form-finding of tensegrities to solve for equilibrium shapes.
Any substance applied to watercolor paper that repels water and therefore paint pigment. Wax crayons and oil pastels are common resists. Unlike frisket, resists are generally a permanent addition to the painting.
Planning and execution stages that produce a sculpture from concept to realized work.
Covers ideation, studies, modeling, assembly, finishing, and installation workflow.
Fresh water drops applied to a wet, near-dry, or dry area of color lift pigment in a fluid way, producing organic bloom shapes.
an art movement, prominent in 18th-century Italy, focused on highly detailed, realistic paintings or prints of cityscapes and landscapes, especially popular with Grand Tour travelers as souvenirs of famous sites like Rome and Venice. Key elements include precise architectural detail, often achieved with tools like the camera obscura, and two main types: veduta esatta (exact views) and veduta ideata (imaginary or idealized views, also called capricci). Masters like Canaletto and Guardi defined the Venetian style.
Complementary colors are directly opposite each other on the color wheel. In other words, they are the colors that are furthest apart from each other in terms of hue and color temperature. e.g Red and Green, or Orange and Blue. Complementary colors contrast with each other when placed side by side. When mixed together they tend to cancel each other out, forming a 'Muddy' neutral color.
Human figures included in a composition primarily for scale, animation, or compositional purposes rather than as psychological subjects.
Distinguished from portraiture or figure painting where the human subject is the primary focus.
Dipping a brush handle into fresh paint and dragging it through a wet wash to create unpredictable lines ranging from soft, feathered edges to solid dabs of paint.
A set of vertices, edges, and faces describing the surface of a 3D object.
Apply fabric such as gauze to a wet wash or dry paper, shaping as needed. Paint over the fabric, let dry, then remove to reveal the fabric's texture. Results vary by color and fabric type.
A cold-press watercolor paper in a block.
A consistent viewpoint placement in which the implied viewer stands just outside the depicted social gathering, at a low standing height, separated from the crowd by the foreground threshold zone. Creates a reflective, observational relationship to the scene rather than immersive participation.
Source: 20260309. Broader updated to ViewerPositioningStrategy. ChatGPT's EdgeObserverViewpoint covers the same ground with less depth and is discarded.
The edge position enables perception of optical phenomena ? reflections, shadow patterns, color interactions ? that immersion in the crowd would preclude.
A technical assessment of a work of art is an examination of the work's technical execution, materials, and other aspects that can help determine its authenticity, history, and value.
A composition in which a gathering of people in a public space constitutes the primary human subject, distinct from portraiture (individual focus) or staffage (figures as scale markers). The crowd itself ? its density, movement, color, and social texture ? is the subject.
Distinguished from staffage by the degree of attention given to the crowd as collective subject; from figure painting by the absence of individual psychological focus.
Balance achieved through the arrangement of unlike elements that nevertheless feel visually equivalent.
Generally considered more dynamic and sophisticated than symmetrical balance.
A wet-into-wet wash in which colors are placed side by side and blended along their edges. A signature watercolor technique used to convey the natural scattering and bouncing of light and color, and to create abstract patterns.
Lossless raster image format supporting transparency; suitable for web and compositing.
Quantification of image detail for print or viewing; DPI for print devices, PPI for pixel density.
An unintended and unforeseen event that occurred during the course of a painting which nevertheless resulted in a desirable effect.
This better belongs under paintingTerm when that is available
Plain-text 3D mesh interchange format supporting geometry, UVs, and materials via MTL.
The characteristic ways a tensegrity can oscillate or deform when excited dynamically. Modal behavior reveals resonance frequencies, softness directions, and stiffness distribution.
The perceptual balance created when a tensegrity appears poised, neither collapsing nor exploding. Visual equilibrium is the felt stability that mirrors mechanical equilibrium.
A short-haired brush with hairs spread in a fan shape. Used for blending edges and mimicking textures such as fur, feathers, grasses, foliage, tree boughs, and ripples on water.
Using opaque gouache alongside transparent watercolor to add visual interest and vibrancy. Distinct areas of each must be maintained or the opaque/transparent contrast will be lost.