Stippling builds an image gradually from repeated marks, with denser clusters producing darkness and scattered dots producing light or softness. The method rewards patience and makes the viewer aware of how a whole emerges from discrete units. In poetry, stippling can describe an accumulative style made of brief observations, fragments, or details. A stippled poem may avoid direct explanation, trusting small particulars to gather into mood, portrait, or revelation.

Stippling builds tone and texture from many individual dots rather than continuous lines or brushstrokes. Closely spaced dots create darker areas while wider spacing produces lighter ones, allowing fine gradations without conventional shading. The technique occurs in drawing, engraving, scientific illustration, tattooing, and other visual media. Its patiently accumulated marks can suggest precision or painstaking labour. Poetry students may compare it with verbal techniques in which many small details gradually create an overall impression. Related terms include pointillism, hatching, cross-hatching, texture, tonal value, dot, engraving, and mark-making.