K - Abbreviation for degrees kelvin.
Kagle - A rough, highly abstracted African mask of the Dan people.
Kakemono - In Japanese art tradition, a painting is mounted for hanging vertically.
Kakjiku - In Japanese art tradition, a hanging scroll is used for mounting pieces of calligraphy.
Kanshitsu - In Japanese art tradition, a technique of building up layers of lacquer reinforced with hemp over a clay core to form a hollow sculpture.
Kelvin - A unit of absolute temperature often used in photography to measure the color temperature of a light source. Abbreviated K, kelvins can be converted to degrees Celsius by subtracting 273. Certain tungsten lamps are designed to burn at specific absolute temperatures (usually 3200 or 3400 K), guaranteeing that compatible photographic films will render the color they illuminate quite accurately.
Kern and Kerning - In typography, a kern is the projecting portion of a character that overlaps the edge of an adjacent letter. Kerning is the technique of adjusting the spacing between letters, usually to give them the appearance of more even (consistent) spacing. A typographer might also describe this as adjusting the "letter space." The original sense of kerning limited this adjustment to closing the space enough to overlap the letters' edges. Letters often benefit from kerning in this original sense, including i, l, and t. When letter space between italic letters is adjusted, the spaces preceding f, v, and w will likely need kerning because the forward slope results in too much space on the baseline. Some ligatures, including "æ," were formed by kerning. A ligature is a single character comprising two or more letters joined together as a standard element in a set of types — e.g., æ (a+e) and Æ (A+E). Also see graphic design, imbrication, leading, lettering, text, and typeface.
Keystone - The central and highest stone in an arch. It cannot fall out of place because it is wedge-shaped, with the broadest part of the wedge at the top. It is the last stone to be set in place during the construction of an arch. Pressing equally on either side holds the arch together.
Kiln - In art, an oven that reaches very high temperatures hardens clay.
Kinesthetic - The sensory experience of the body's movement. Physical awareness of the body's position in space. Also see dance, interdisciplinary, and music.
Kinetic - Expressing movement. In art, kinetic refers to a sculpture that moves, such as a mobile.
Kneaded Eraser - An eraser that can be manipulated into any shape to cleanly remove pencil and many other marks. Also called a putty rubber. Also, see the art gum eraser.
