MMFA Docent Volunteers
MMFA Docent Volunteers
  • EXHIBITIONS and ADULT PROGRAMS
    • EXHIBITION SCHEDULE 2019
    • SCUPTURE GARDEN LINKS
    • ADULT PROGRAMS >
      • Ekphrasis: A Monthly Book Club about Art
      • Films
      • Lectures and Gallery Talks
      • Short Course
  • DOCENT PROGRAM
    • DOCENT COUNCIL >
      • Docent Council Archive
    • DOCENT HANDBOOK
    • DOCENT ROSTER 2019-20
    • DOCENT TRAINING 2019
    • TRAINING RECAPS
    • DOCENT APPLICATION
    • DOCENT PHOTOS >
      • THE DOCENT WALL
      • DOCENT EMERITUS PHOTOS
      • FIELD TRIPS
      • DOCENT PRESENTATION PICS 2016
    • DOCENT EXHIBITION AND MORE >
      • DOCENT EXHIBITION 2016 >
        • JOURNEY THROUGH THE COLLECTION PHOTOS
      • DOCENT EXHIBITION/FAMILY FUN DAY
  • MPS Tours
    • MPS 5 Tour Schedule
    • Becoming Alabama Curriculum Guide
    • MPS KINDERGARTEN - ART OF BAKING TOUR SCHEDULE >
      • CAKEWALK STATIONS
      • CAKEWALK SCRIPT IDEAS
      • ART OF BAKING AUDIO LINK
    • FIFTH GRADE TOUR ARCHIVE >
      • MPS AMERICAN SCENE 5TH GRADE TOUR >
        • TOUR OVERVIEW
        • TOUR STRUCTURE
        • TOUR CATEGORIES
        • OUTREACH
        • CURRICULUM GUIDE
        • STUDIO
        • ARTWORKS
        • CONTENT STANDARDS
        • VOCABULARY
  • SPRING 2019 STUDIO CLASSES
  • BLOG
  • RESOURCES
    • VIDEOS
    • TOURING STRATEGIES
    • GENERAL BACKGROUND
    • EXHIBITION BACKGROUND
  • ARCHIVES, VARIOUS
    • Welcome Angie Dodson
    • DOCENT GRADUATION 2017
    • DOCENT TRAINING ARCHIVES >
      • 2017-18 Training Materials >
        • August 13, 2018 >
          • MoMA Interactive: What is a Print?
          • FRANK STELLA PRINTS
        • August 28, 2017 >
          • BECOMING ALABAMA Curricular Guide
          • MPS 5 Addendum Group 1
        • Early American Portraits and 19th Century Still Life
        • October 30, 2017 >
          • 19th Century Genre Painting and Realism
        • November 6, 2017 >
          • Uncommon Territory
        • November 13, 2017 >
          • VTS Video
        • November 6 and 13 Recap
      • NEW DOCENT PRESENTATIONS 2017
      • 2016 First Docent Training Pics
    • GRADUATION 2015
    • RIVER REGION VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR
    • SUMMER ENRICHMENT 2017
    • EXHIBITION IMAGES, ARCHIVED
    • EXHIBITION ARCHIVES >
      • PRESENT EXHIBITIONS
      • 1917-2017: A Century of U.S. Airpower from the Air Force Art Collection
      • Beth Lipman Label Copy
      • Beth Lipman
      • Dinner Bell
      • Frank Stella Prints: A Retrospective
      • Hans Grohs and the Dance of Death
      • Lynn Saville
      • Nature, Tradition and Innovation: Contemporary Japanese Ceramics from the Gordon Brodfueher Collection
      • Pairs and Partners >
        • Pairs and Partners
      • Photorealism
      • Rodin: Realism, Fragments, and Abstraction
      • Sewn Together: Two Centuries of Alabama Quilts
      • Taking it to the Streets
      • Women's Work
    • OLLI, ARCHIVES
    • SHORT COURSE ARCHIVES >
      • DOCENT SHORT COURSE, Spring 2015
  • TOUR PHOTOS
    • MONTGOMERY CHRISTIAN ACADEMY
  • Docent Personal Event Page
    • BOCQUIN BABY SHOWER
    • Wanica Means in Baptist Commercial
    • Murphy Smith Wedding Reception
  • OLLI Course Schedule
  • Link Page
  • EXHIBITIONS and ADULT PROGRAMS
    • EXHIBITION SCHEDULE 2019
    • SCUPTURE GARDEN LINKS
    • ADULT PROGRAMS >
      • Ekphrasis: A Monthly Book Club about Art
      • Films
      • Lectures and Gallery Talks
      • Short Course
  • DOCENT PROGRAM
    • DOCENT COUNCIL >
      • Docent Council Archive
    • DOCENT HANDBOOK
    • DOCENT ROSTER 2019-20
    • DOCENT TRAINING 2019
    • TRAINING RECAPS
    • DOCENT APPLICATION
    • DOCENT PHOTOS >
      • THE DOCENT WALL
      • DOCENT EMERITUS PHOTOS
      • FIELD TRIPS
      • DOCENT PRESENTATION PICS 2016
    • DOCENT EXHIBITION AND MORE >
      • DOCENT EXHIBITION 2016 >
        • JOURNEY THROUGH THE COLLECTION PHOTOS
      • DOCENT EXHIBITION/FAMILY FUN DAY
  • MPS Tours
    • MPS 5 Tour Schedule
    • Becoming Alabama Curriculum Guide
    • MPS KINDERGARTEN - ART OF BAKING TOUR SCHEDULE >
      • CAKEWALK STATIONS
      • CAKEWALK SCRIPT IDEAS
      • ART OF BAKING AUDIO LINK
    • FIFTH GRADE TOUR ARCHIVE >
      • MPS AMERICAN SCENE 5TH GRADE TOUR >
        • TOUR OVERVIEW
        • TOUR STRUCTURE
        • TOUR CATEGORIES
        • OUTREACH
        • CURRICULUM GUIDE
        • STUDIO
        • ARTWORKS
        • CONTENT STANDARDS
        • VOCABULARY
  • SPRING 2019 STUDIO CLASSES
  • BLOG
  • RESOURCES
    • VIDEOS
    • TOURING STRATEGIES
    • GENERAL BACKGROUND
    • EXHIBITION BACKGROUND
  • ARCHIVES, VARIOUS
    • Welcome Angie Dodson
    • DOCENT GRADUATION 2017
    • DOCENT TRAINING ARCHIVES >
      • 2017-18 Training Materials >
        • August 13, 2018 >
          • MoMA Interactive: What is a Print?
          • FRANK STELLA PRINTS
        • August 28, 2017 >
          • BECOMING ALABAMA Curricular Guide
          • MPS 5 Addendum Group 1
        • Early American Portraits and 19th Century Still Life
        • October 30, 2017 >
          • 19th Century Genre Painting and Realism
        • November 6, 2017 >
          • Uncommon Territory
        • November 13, 2017 >
          • VTS Video
        • November 6 and 13 Recap
      • NEW DOCENT PRESENTATIONS 2017
      • 2016 First Docent Training Pics
    • GRADUATION 2015
    • RIVER REGION VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR
    • SUMMER ENRICHMENT 2017
    • EXHIBITION IMAGES, ARCHIVED
    • EXHIBITION ARCHIVES >
      • PRESENT EXHIBITIONS
      • 1917-2017: A Century of U.S. Airpower from the Air Force Art Collection
      • Beth Lipman Label Copy
      • Beth Lipman
      • Dinner Bell
      • Frank Stella Prints: A Retrospective
      • Hans Grohs and the Dance of Death
      • Lynn Saville
      • Nature, Tradition and Innovation: Contemporary Japanese Ceramics from the Gordon Brodfueher Collection
      • Pairs and Partners >
        • Pairs and Partners
      • Photorealism
      • Rodin: Realism, Fragments, and Abstraction
      • Sewn Together: Two Centuries of Alabama Quilts
      • Taking it to the Streets
      • Women's Work
    • OLLI, ARCHIVES
    • SHORT COURSE ARCHIVES >
      • DOCENT SHORT COURSE, Spring 2015
  • TOUR PHOTOS
    • MONTGOMERY CHRISTIAN ACADEMY
  • Docent Personal Event Page
    • BOCQUIN BABY SHOWER
    • Wanica Means in Baptist Commercial
    • Murphy Smith Wedding Reception
  • OLLI Course Schedule
  • Link Page
Abstract – Art derived from realism but deviating in appearance; maintaining the essentials of shape, line, color, and texture relating to the subject.

Abstract expressionism – An American movement in the 1940s and 1950s that emphasized feelings and emotions; often called “action painting” because many artists used slashing brushstrokes and dripped, poured, or spattered paint on canvas.

Aesthetics – A philosophy dealing with the nature and expression of beauty, as in the fine arts.

Analogous – Three or more colors that are closely related because they contain a common hue and are adjacent on the color wheel. Blue, green-blue, and green are analogous colors. Analogous colors may be used as a color scheme.

Art criticism – Art processes and skills involved in studying, understanding, and judging a work of art; the four formal steps involve description, analysis, interpretation, and judgment.

Atmospheric perspective – Creating the illusion of distance on a flat surface by simulating the effects of light and air on an object; for example, a bright object appears closer to the viewer than a dull object. (Also called aerial perspective.)

Background – The part of the picture plane appearing to be farthest from the viewer.

Balance – A design principle dealing with the appearance of stability or the equalization of elements in a work of art; a balanced work of art seems to have equal visual weight or interest in all areas. Balance may be symmetrical, asymmetrical, or radical.

Coil method – A process of rolling long pieces of clay and using them to form the sides of bowls, containers, or objects.

Collage – A work of art where various materials, such as bits of paper, fabric, photographs, and found objects, are arranged and glued to a flat surface.

Collagraph –The print resulting from printing a relief collage.

Complementary colors – Colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel. Red and green, blue and orange, and yellow and purple are complementary colors. They make a neutral result when mixed.

Composition – The organization of the elements of art and principles of design in creating a work of art.

Contrast – The use of opposing elements, such as color forms or lines, to produce different effects in a work of art.

Cool colors – Blues, greens, and violets. These colors suggest coolness and appear to recede from the viewer.

Critique – A critical review or commentary dealing with a literary or artistic work.

Design – The organization of the art elements and principles into a plan. (Also called composition.)

Digital media – The use of technology to capture images, sounds, and effects in the creative process.

Elements of art – The “visual tools” artists use to create works of art. These include form, shape, line, texture, color, space, and value.

Form – A shape having three dimensions—height, width, and depth.

            Shape – An area defined by line or color.
            Line – The path made by a moving point that can vary in width, direction, and                     length.
            Texture – The actual roughness or smoothness of a surface or the illusion 

            thereof.
            Color – The hue, value, and intensity of an object as seen by the human eye.
            Space – The area between, around, above, below, or within objects.
            Value – The lightness or darkness of a color. (See Shade and Tint.)

Foreground – The parts of an artwork that appear closest to the viewer.

Found object – Everyday objects such as cups, keys, chains, buttons, lids, and scraps that can be composed to create a work of art such as an assemblage, a collage, a stabile, a mobile, or a sculpture.

Genre subjects – Depiction of everyday life scenes.

Grotesque – A relief decorating Gothic architecture such as gargoyles and sculptures.

Intermediate (tertiary) colors – Colors made by mixing equal parts of a primary and secondary color (red-orange, yellow-orange, blue-green, blue-violet, violet-red).

Linear perspective – A technique of creating the illusion of space on a two-dimensional surface using vanishing points and lines.

Medium – Material applied in creating a work of art, such as a pencil, paint, wood, ink, metal, clay, or food.

Middle ground – Area appearing between the foreground and the background.

Mixed-media – A work of art using more than one medium.

Mobile – A suspended construction moving about in space, creating variations of shapes, spaces, and shadows.

Monochromatic color – One color used in varied values and intensities.

Monoprint – Printing process that produces one unique copy of the same design that cannot be printed more than once.

Mosaic – Artwork made by adhering small pieces of stone, ceramic tile, or other materials to a background.

Multimedia – Referring to various media such as a camera, television, video, tape recorder, CDROM, computer, or slide projector.

Negative space or shape – The space surrounding shapes or solid forms in a work of art.

Neutral color – Black, brown, gray, and white.

Portfolio – Samples of an artist’s work assembled for review.


Portrait - A work of art that represents a specific person, a group of people, or an animal. Portraits usually show what a person looks like as well as revealing something about the subject's personality. Portraits can be made of any sculptural material or in any two-dimensional medium. Portraiture is the field of portrait making and portraits in general.

Portrait is a term that may also refer simply to a vertically oriented rectangle, just as a horizontally oriented one may be said to be oriented the landscape way.


Positive space or shape – Objects in a work of art that are not the background or the space around them.

Primary colors – Red, yellow, and blue.

Principles of design – Guidelines artists use to create works of art and control how viewers react to these works; the principles of design are balance, repetition or rhythm, unity or harmony, movement, emphasis, variety, and proportion.

            Balance – Arranging visual elements in a work of art equally; three types of          

            balance are formal (symmetrical), informal (asymmetrical), and radial.
            Repetition or rhythm – Repeating lines, shapes, colors, or patterns.
            Unity or harmony – The oneness or wholeness of a work of art.
            Movement – The arrangement of elements in an artwork organized to create a

            sense of motion.
            Emphasis – Accent, stress, or importance of a part of an artwork.
            Variety – Principles of design concerned with difference or contrast.
            Proportion – The placement or ratio of one part of an artwork to another part or               to the whole.

Printmaking – Producing multiple copies of an original work of art from blocks or plates.

Relief – A sculptural form such as a frieze that is raised from the surface.

Resist – Method where wax or crayon is used to cover surface areas the artist does not want to be affected by paint or dye.

Rubbings – A technique of transferring the textural quality of a surface to paper.

Secondary colors – Orange, green, and violet.

Shade – A dark value of a hue made by adding black to the color or its complement; opposite of tint.

Stabile – A metal sculpture, usually abstract, with no mobile parts.

Style – Refers to the artist’s unique manner of expression.

Technique – The style or manner in which the artist uses media.

Tessellation – A mosaic pattern made by interlocking repetitive shapes to form a work of art.

Tint – A tone of color made by adding white to a basic hue.

Vanishing point – The point or points where all parallel lines appear to converge.

isual Arts Standards

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