Grisaille is a monochrome painting technique in which a painting is executed entirely in shades of grey or another neutral color.

The subject matter of Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation is drawn from Luke 1:26-39. It depicts the angel Gabriel, sent by God to announce to the virgin Mary that she will miraculously conceive and give birth to a son, Jesus, who will be called "the Son of God". The painting was begun by Andrea del Verrocchio who used lead-based paint and heavy brush strokes. He left a note for da Vinci, one of this students, to finish the background and the angel. Leonardo used light brush strokes and no lead. When the Annunciation was x-rayed, Verrocchio's work was evident while Leonardo's angel was invisible.

Vermillion is a brilliant red pigment made from mercury sulfide.

Sfumato is the technique of allowing tones and colors to shade gradually into one another, producing softened outlines or hazy forms. It is one of the four canonical painting modes of Renaissance art (alongside cangiante, chiaroscuro, and unione).

Tenebrism is a compositional technique using very pronounced chiaroscuro, in which some areas of a painting are kept completely black, allowing other areas to be strongly illuminated -- usually from a single source of light. The technique was popular during the Baroque period, and Caravaggio is usually credited with invention of the style.

Chiaroscuro is the dramatic effect of contrasting areas of light and dark in an artwork, particularly paintings, to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects and figures. It comes from the combination of the Italian words for "light" and "dark."

Scumble is a technique similar to glazing, except that the coating is opaque, and is painted on very thinly to allow bits of the paint below to shine through. It is commonly used as an atmospheric effect when rendering fog or clouds.

Any color plus white is a tint.

Any color plus black is a shade.

Any color plus gray is a tone.