Be the Artist 2021 Is Coming to Enhance Your Artistic Word Power

The month of June begins next week and with it the summer season and time to “Be the Artist” once again.

In past summers, we’ve traveled around the globe and traveled through time. We have even covered artists who use their work for a wide range of purposes, from activism to advertising, education, and entertainment.

This year, as we begin a new biweekly series of art for all levels and most ages, we will focus on something a little different: vocabulary.

I know it sounds boring at first, but the art world is filled with phrases, words, and techniques that denote something particular and fantastic in the art world. These phrases may be familiar to most artists, while others may be known to many outside the art world. This summer is a chance to learn the meaning of these words and try our own hands at them (or at least something as close to them as possible).

For example, what type of medium is used in “encaustic” paintings and “batik” dying? What does an “all-over painting” mean in modern art and “automatism” mean in surrealism?

Is “fauvism” or “emulsion” more colorful, and where have you seen the best use of “iconography?”

Some of these words we will use together like “papier-collé” and “ephemera,” as well as “diptych” and “triptych,” a pair of words we will begin the series with next week.

Get out a piece of paper—or three—and be ready to dive into the world of visual art and expressive words, as we enhance our word power and find new ways to create fan art.

In the meantime, try the final Be the Artist project from last summer, “Storyboards,” and get ready to tell some new stories this year, most with a collection of new words.