| Acrylic paints | acrylics (plastic paints) produce vibrant, almost glowing colors. When mixed with water, acrylics resemble transparent watercolors. More often acrylics are used straight from the tube. Like oils, they can be built up on the painting surface to give a dense texture; however, they dry faster than oils.
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| Artistic perspective | just as an author decides what would be the best point of view from which to tell a story, so too does an artist think about perspective. One way to obtain action in what might otherwise be a static series of pictures is to change the focus, just as a movie camera changes perspective or shows close-ups and then moves back to pan the whole scene.
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| Borders | an artist may decide to create borders for his or her illustrations; these borders may incorporate designs, patterns, or images.
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| Cadenced language | rhythmical language.
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| Cartoon | the term cartoon was originally used to refer to the large, fully developed line drawings that artists prepared and then transferred to frescoes or easel paintings. This style has often been called comic art or comic-book style.
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| Character delineation | illustrations also help create convincing character delineation; the characterization in the pictures must correspond to that in the story. Expression and gesture can reveal character and move the action forward.
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| Character development | illustrations can depict physical, social, and/or emotional changes that the characters undergo in the course of the story.
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| Charcoal | a medium for illustration that produces soft or defined black or gray lines and varying black and gray shadings.
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| Cloth designs | cloth may be used to create illustrations that are then photographed for reproduction purposes.
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| Collage | The word collage, derived from the French verb collar, meaning "to paste," refers to the kind of picture that is made by cutting out a variety of different kinds of materials—newspaper clippings, patterned wallpaper, fabric, and the like—and assembling them into a unified, harmonious illustration.
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| Color | an important element in picture book illustrations; artists use color to enhance the mood of a story and to create special effects; modern publishing techniques make it much easier and less expensive to publish full color books, but many illustrators are still using black-and-white graphics to create exciting picture books.
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| Dust jacket | the paper cover for a hardcover book; the primary purpose of the jacket is to call attention to the book.
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| Endpapers | these are the first and last pages of the book; one half of each is glued to the inside of the cover, while the other is not pasted down. Endpapers are usually of stronger paper than printed pages. In picture books, endpapers are often of a color that harmonizes with the cover or other pictures in the book, and frequently they are illustrated. Decorated endpapers can reflect the setting, the theme, or the content of the book and serve as a special invitation into the book.
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| Etchings | etching is another type of engraving technique. A design is drawn with a tool on a waxed metal plate, then the plate is dipped in acid, which eats thin lines into the metal. The wax is removed, and prints are then made from the inked plate.
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| Expressionism | aspects of expressionistic art include shocking colors, figures slightly out of proportion, and rough, rapid brushwork. The emphasis is on the artist's own inner emotions and on self-expression rather than the reproduction of what he or she sees.
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| Figurative language | language that suggests an image.
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| Folk art | the style often found in self-taught artists like Grandma Moses, Henri Rousseau, and the itinerant painters, or limners, of colonial America. It can be characterized by a lack of such conventions as perspective and so-called real appearances. It also suggests the art of the common people and thus implies art that is centered in community.
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| Fusion of picture and text | a picture book must be a seamless whole, conveying meaning in both the art and the text. Moreover, in a picture book the illustration does not merely reflect the idea or action on a single page but shares in moving a story forward and in engaging the reader with the narrative on both an intellectual and an emotional level. Throughout the narration the pictures should convey and enhance the meaning behind the story.
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| Gouache | gouache (pronounced "gwash") paint is watercolor with the addition of chalk and has an effect similar to tempera.
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| Gutter | side-sewing to bind a book causes the inner margins of each page to be not visible; this section is known as the gutter.
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| Illustrated | an illustrated book is different from a picture book. In an illustrated book only particular incidents in the story might be illustrated to create interest.
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| Impressionism | the term Impressionism is associated with the French artists who worked in and around Paris in the latter part of the nineteenth century, including such well-known painters as Monet, Sisley, and Pissarro. They were concerned with observing nature as it really was and so attempted to capture their first visual impressions before intellect or emotion could define the image further.
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| Limners | itinerant painters of colonial America.
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| Line | line is so inherently a part of every illustration that we forget that this element, too, can convey meaning. A horizontal line suggests repose and peace, a vertical line gives stability, and a diagonal line suggests action and movement.
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| Linoleum block prints | a method of printing in which the nonprinting areas are cut away from a piece of linoleum using a sharp pointed tool, leaving a raised surface that, when inked and pressed on paper, duplicates the original design; linoleum block prints also give a finer line than woodcuts.
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| Mass-marketed books | books produced inexpensively to sell in locations such as grocery stores.
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| Metaphor | something used to represent something else.
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| Modern folktale style | a book written in modern times that follows the pattern of a traditional folktale.
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| Naïve style | one form of naive art is the style often found in self-taught artists like Grandma Moses, Henri Rousseau, and the itinerant painters, or limners, of colonial America. It can be characterized by a lack of such conventions as perspective and so-called real appearances. It also suggest the art of the common people and thus implies art that is centered in community.
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| Negative space | the space around the object in the foreground.
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| Opaque paint | paint that is impenetrable to light, such as tempera, gouache, and oils.
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| Page lay-out | the composition of the page.
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| Pen-and-ink | method of line-drawing usually using black ink and a pen.
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| Personal styles | few picture-book artists use only one style of art; they adapt their work to meet the requirements of a particular story. At the same time, many of them do develop a recognizable personal style that can be identified by their preference for a particular pictorial style of art, use of medium, or even choice of content.
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| Personification | to give an animal or an object the human qualities of a person.
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| Picture book | picture books are art objects. They are books in which images and ideas join to form a unique whole. In the best picture books, the illustrations extend and enhance the written text, providing readers with an aesthetic experience that is more than the sum of the books' parts.
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| Plasticine | modeling clay; modern reproduction techniques have freed illustrators to work in three dimensions.
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| Primitive art | also called naïve or folk art.
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| Realism or representational art | art which attempts to reproduce and image of a real object in a photographic style.
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| Scratchboard illustrations | in the making of scratchboard illustrations, a very black ink is usually painted on the smooth white surface of a drawing board or scratchboard. When the ink is thoroughly dry, the picture is made by scratching through the black-inked surface with a sharp instrument. Color can be added with a transparent overlay, painted on the white scratchboard prior to applying the black ink or applied after the drawing is complete. Scratchboard techniques produce crisply textured illustrations.
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| Sepia | a brown pigment obtained from cuttlefish.
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| Space | the spacing of the text on the page, the choice of margins, and the white space within a book contribute to the making of a quality picture book.
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| Spin-offs | a book that uses a traditional story or storyline in a new way.
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| Style | style is an elusive quality of an artist's work based on the arrangement of line, color, and mass into a visual image. According to Barbara Kiefer, style might be defined as a "manner of expressing." "The meaning of the word express—to make known, reveal, show—is in keeping with the dual nature of style. The word manner can encompass all the conscious as well as unconscious choices the artist embraces to ‘make known.' Aspects of style such as formal elements, techniques, and pictorial conventions, then, are among the choices the artist makes to accomplish the primary purpose of expressing meaning."
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| Surrealism | surrealism is characterized more by subject matter than by technique, for the surrealist combines realistic yet incongruous images in unnatural juxtapositions. To make the viewer believe in this unreal scene, the artwork will be meticulously realistic in detail.
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| Tempera | a type of paint that is opaque and impenetrable to light.
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| Title page | the interior page, usually following the endpapers of a book, that showcases the book's title; the title page of a picture book can be beautiful and symbolic.
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| Translucent paint | paint that has a somewhat transparent quality.
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| Typeface | typeface refers to the thousands of letter styles available today. Before the advent of computers created fonts, printers chose from some six thousand different styles then available.
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| Value | the amount of lightness or darkness in a picture.
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| Visual metaphor | a metaphor is something used to represent something else; some picture-book illustrations use visual metaphors in the same way that poets add to the image-making qualities of their poems.
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| White space | the unprinted areas of an illustration.
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| Woodcuts | in the making of a woodcut, the nonprinting areas are cut away, leaving a raised surface that, when inked and pressed on paper, duplicates the original design. If color is to be used, the artist must prepare as many woodcuts as colors, or the printed picture can be painted by hand. Woodcut illustrations produce a bold simplicity and have a power not found in any other medium.
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