Color and watercolor pencils will use entirely different papers, but some terms apply to both. Watercolor pencils can be used on any watercolor paper; drawing papers are better for colored pencils.

1. Acid Free or Archival – 100% rag , cotton, or linen watercolor paper with neutral or slightly low ph, alkaline (base) vs. acidic, and pure ingredients when manufactured. (High acidity papers degrade quickly.)  Some synthetic papers are archival in nature but have unique working properties.
2. Block –  a pad with a number of sheets of watercolor paper which has been glued on all four sides and attached to a stiff backing board. These pads do not need to be taped down. Sheets tend to flatten when dry, eliminating any need for stretching.
3. Cold Pressed (CP) Watercolor Paper – mildly rough texture used with watercolor pencnils. It takes color smoothly but the tooth allows for slight irregularities and graining in washes.
4. Grain – The basic structure of the surface of paper, as in fine, medium and rough grain.
5. Hot Pressed (HP) Watercolor Paper – pressed flat through hot cylinders; it is the smoothest texture available and preferred by artists who use much detail in their artwork. Excellent for detailed rubberstamping.
6. Paper weight – The weight of a stack of watercolor paper expressed in numeric values; the higher the number, the heavier the paper. Generally the lighter weights like 90lb buckle more and should not be used with large wet washes; 140lb is typical, and 300lb is often used by professional artists as it generally will not buckle at all.
7. Rough Cold Pressed Watercolor Paper –  a coarse, rough texture, allowing for maximum graining of washes and texture.
8. Smooth drawing paper – less texture lets colored pencil fill in more white gaps in the paper for a smoother look.
9. Textured drawing paper – allows for a rough textured look with colored pencil by leaving the white paper showing evenly beneath color.
10. Tooth – the surface texture of paper.
11.  YUPO – a synthetic paper that does not easily absorb pigment or water.

1. Adjacent hue – next to another hue on a color wheel. Also known as analogous.
2. Analogous colors  – colors next to each other on the color wheel; easiest to blend.
3. Chroma – The purity or degree of saturation of a color; relative absence of white or gray in a color.
4. Color Wheel – a circular diagram that shows colors and their relationships to one another.
5. Complementary hue – opposites on the color wheel; complements create neutral colors when combined.
6. Desaturation – dull colors, more neutral.
7. Hue – another name for color
8. Intensity –  a color’s saturation, brightness or strength; saturation.
9. Muted – suppressing the full color value of a particular color.
10. Primary colors – three colors (red, yellow, and blue) that are the basis for all other color combinations.
11. Saturation – a color’s strength or brightness. Also known as intensity.
12. Secondary colors – colors created by mixing equal parts of two primary colors (red, blue, and yellow); the secondary colors are violet, orange, and green.
13. Temperature – the visual warmth or coolness of a color.
14. Tertiary colors – created from adjacent secondaries and primaries.
15. Tint – created by adding water or white to the original color; the more water added, the weaker the intensity
16. Tone – a hue with gray added.
17. Value – the shade (darkness) or tint (lightness) of a color.

1. Background – 1) the area within a composition that appears further away from the viewer – smaller and with less detail; or 2) a flat color filling in between objects
2. Cast Shadow – The dark area that results when the source of light has been intercepted by an object.
3. Form Shadow – The shadow created due to the rounded shape of an object as it moves further from the light source.
4. Highlight – the side of an object that is closer to the light.
5. Landscape – 1) subject matter is natural scenery. 2)  orientation of a rectangle, wider than it is tall.
6. Linear  – a composition in which line is the dominant element in defining form as opposed to mass;  the opposite of painterly. This would describe most rubber-stamped cards.
7. Motif – A term meaning “subject.” Flowers or roses can be a motif.
8. Negative space – 1) the area around an object or 2) the areas of an artwork that are NOT the primary subject or object.
9. Nonrepresentational – abstract
10. Painterly – a loose, fluid or textured style
11. Portrait –  subject matter is human; also, orientation of a rectangle, taller than it is wide.
12. Realism, Representational –  The depiction of figures, objects, or scenes with minimal distortion or stylization.
13. Shading – the side of an object that is on the opposite side from the light source.

1. Blending stump – tightly wrapped stick of paper sharpened on the end for blending; also called a tortillon.
2. Brush – any brush can be used with solvents; recommend dedicating a brush for your pencils.
3. Colorless blender – pencil made without pigment, just binder, to burnish without affecting color or value.
4. Cotton balls – use for dry blending pigment 
5. Electric eraser – battery operated eraser that spins at the tip.
6. Fixative – a protective spray to apply colored pencil artwork.
7. Kneaded eraser – a soft gummy eraser that an artist can squeeze into different shapes.
8. Solvent – a liquid that breaks down pencil pigment into a near-liquid; eg Gamsol. Store in small jars with cotton ball inside and a lid to keep it from spilling on artwork.
9. Stick eraser – an eraser in “pencil” casing for drawing/erasing lines.
10. Tooth – the texture of the drawing surface. (Coarse = rougher, finer = smoother)
11. Tortillon – tightly wrapped stick of paper sharpened on the end for blending; also called a blending stump. 

Most techniques listed here are for colored pencil, and for the intial application of watercolor pencil. Please refer to the watercolor pencil glossary for more information on using brushes and techniques to move watercolor pencil around.

1. Blending – combining of the two or more colors together creates a new color or soft blend between them.
2. Buffing – using a soft cloth or tissue to remove wax bloom.
3. Burnishing – using heavy pressure to blend pencil and fill in white areas of paper.
4. Crosshatching – layers of parallel lines in different directions.
5. Dry blending – using just the pencil or pencil with cotton balls or blending stumps – multiple layers and a slow process make this successful.
6. Flat or solid color: a large flood of a single color and value; difficult to achieve in pencil without patience or pencil powder.
7. Hatching – drawing with parallel lines to fill in an area.
8. Impress – indent or alter the paper surface with a sharp tool to allow pencil to “skip” those marks.
9. Layering – adding one color on top of another to create a third, usually lighter over darker.
10. Lifting – removing pigment from a surface with an eraser or knife.
11. Lost and Found Edges, or Broken or Inferred Edges – used to create and suggest movement of elements of a drawing into each other, where soft edges blend to appear to rise up out of color behind it.
12. Melting out – a term used with watercolor pencils and the ease of turning it into moveable wet paint using a wet brush.
13. Monochromatic – drawing with a single color (hue) and its tints and shades.
14. Pencil painting – can be called a painting or drawing.
15. Powdered Pigment – creating a light powder by grating pencils and spreading with a blending stump, cotton ball, or other material.
16. Pressure – the amount of force used to apply pencil color.
17. Variegated Background – a soft wash that smoothly changes in value from dark to light.
18. Solvent – a liquid that can break down colored pencil pigment so it will move.
19. Strokes – the marks with which color pencil is applied.
20. Texture – the actual or drawn physical surface appearance.
21. Underpainting – the first, thin transparent laying in of color in a drawing, especially using white as an underpainting on dark paper..
22. Vignette – a drawing which is shaded off around the edges leaving a pleasing shape.
23. Wax Bloom – cloudiness caused when the wax binder rises to the surface of the artwork.
24. Wet blending – using a solvent to melt colored pencil pigment; apply with a brush, blending stump, cotton ball etc and move pigment around; add more pigment on top as needed.

1. Wax Bloom – cloudiness caused when the wax binder rises to the surface of the artwork; can be a problem with wax based pencils (Prismacolor) but not oil based (Polychromos).
2. Buckling or cockling – can be a problem with watercolor paper for watercolor pencils, so tape the paper down well and dry between layers.