underdrawing
Etymology
From under- + drawing.
underdrawing means A sketch done on the ground of a work of art before paint, pastel, ink, or other more permanent medium is applied. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 90 out of 100.
Why this word is great
UNDERDRAWING — [Noun] A preliminary sketch or drawing applied to a surface as a guide for the subsequent application of paint or another medium. From the English prefix under- (meaning "beneath" or "preliminary") + drawing (from Middle English drauinge, from drawen, "to draw"). Unlike a "sketch"—an aria of potential that may stand alone—or "overpainting"—the declarative finality of color and finish—the underdrawing is the hidden architecture, the essential and deliberately hidden infrastructure. It is the confident graphite lines mapping the fall of a robe, soon to be buried in umber; the ghost of a corrected arm in an oil portrait revealed by x-ray; the scaffolding of charcoal that will hold the weight of a saint’s gaze. This is the necessary, invisible order that makes the visible masterpiece possible.
noun
- A sketch done on the ground of a work of art before paint, pastel, ink, or other more permanent medium is applied.“Depending on the medium used, underdrawing in embroidery and other decorative techniques may be revealed by radiography where it is relatively radio-absorbent in comparison to other materials used either in the original artefact or in later mounting and conservation methods.”
- An image of a figure that is slid under the page on which a designer draws a garment, so that the result conforms to the figure's proportions.“You can use a croquis as an underdrawing for fashion drawing”
- An underdrawn cover or lining of the underside of a floor or roof with plasterwork, boarding, or similar.“He has the whole of the room underdrawn, with the exception of two bays at one end; he admits plenty of air by the windows in the roof into the triangular shaped space formed by the roof and the underdrawing; it is here deprived of its moisture, and passes into the spinning room, where the underdrawing stops short of the length of the room.”