Dabbing

This is used, for the most part, to paint flowers, leaves and ground cover, etc.  To accomplish this, use a bristle brush and dab it against a table or palette to fan out the bristles.  After loading the brush with color(s), gently dab the color onto the canvas in splayed/fanned out fashion.  This is especially good for painting needles on conifers.

Double And/Or Triple Loading A Brush

Simply add two or more colors to the brush at the same time.  This works good for wet on wet applications.  The colors are mixed as you paint.

Dry Brush

This does not mean the brush is actually dry.  Load the tip of the brush with very little paint and skim the canvas surface to blend or soften in a color.  A very light touch is very important.  This is good for creating clouds, for example.

Feathering

This technique is designed to soften edges using a very light touch.  It's good for glazing and highlighting.

Gesso

This acrylic white paint (it also comes in black) seals the canvas before painting begins.  It is very creamy and can be used in place of regular white paint.  It is also good to help make the transparent acrylic paints more opaque so less coats are required.

Glaze

The terms glaze and wash can be used interchangeably.  It is a very thin layer of paint that is applied over a dry section of the painting to create mist, sun rays or fog.  It can also be used to subdue an area that is too bright.

Highlight

Used in the final stages of a painting, it is added to the sunlit side of the most prominent areas of a painting.  To accomplish this use pure color or brighter values.  Pure color means a color that has not been mixed with anything.  For example, ultramarine blue is a pure color.

Mixing

Combining two or more colors can be achieved with a palette knife or a brush.  It can be done on the canvas or the palette.  With acrylic paints the consistency needs to be creamy.

Negative Space

The area that surrounds an object and gives it form is referred to as negative space.  If one has a tree, for example, negative space is the area around the tree.

Scrubbing

This is similar to scumbling, but the strokes are more even and are applied in horizontal or vertical patterns.  It can be used in drybrush or in wet-on-wet.  It's good for blocking in the underpainting.

Scumbling

Unorganized overlapping strokes applied in a variety of different directions is known as scumbling.  It works with clouds, hair and grass.

Softness

In acrylic painting, for the most part, it is very important that the edges are not hard or ridged.  Otherwise, if you need to adjust the edge, you will have to sand it off first.  Since acrylic paints are transparent and require multiple layers, it's important that the edges are soft or feathered.

Underpainting/Blocking In

This is the first step in a painting.  The darker values of the entire painting are added first.  Adding lighter subsequent values for whatever you are painting creates depth and form.

Value

This simply means the intensity of a color.  You can lighten the value of a color by adding white.

Wet-On-Dry

For most a crylic painting this is the technique that is used.  A layer of wet paint is applied over a dry one.

Wet-On-Wet

In this technique, the colors are blended on the canvas while the paint is wet.  It's usually used for areas of sky and water, and is applied with a hake brush.