ELEMENTS OF ART

• Line

• Color

• Shape

• Form

• Space

• Value

• Texture

In order to understand and appreciate art, you must understand it’s language

So, if Art is a language, what is its grammar or structure?

We’ll find the answer in the

Elements of Design

Let’s practice looking!

What elements do you see used in this geranium?

If you said:

Color (red and green)

Shape (the outlines of flowers and leaves)

Line (the stems, the veins of the leaves) and

Texture (smooth petals and furry leaves)

Everywhere you look, you see lines.

In nature you can see lines in tree branches: In a curving river: Or in a spiders web

Line-

Lines formed by wires: Edges of buildings: And winding roads

The manufactured world provides examples too

As you have seen, lines can have many qualities:

They can be: curved or straight

Vertical horizontal diagonal

Thick or thin smooth or rough

Light or dark and continuous or broken

Lines can also be implied or real.

A real line is one you can actually see (Ex. A) while an implied line is the suggestion of a line (Ex. B) An implied line may also be suggested by a string of objects (Ex. C)

(A) (B) (C)

13/9/2011- Warm up:

How does this artwork by M.C. Escher use VALUE in

order to create FORM?

Value Value refers to the lightness and darkness of a color.

Value is commonly known as “shading” of an object.

SHADES TINTS ORIGINAL COLOR

Accomplished artists know, that to make a drawing look as real as possible, they must show a full value range in their artwork

CONTOUR Line Study

*Line- is the two-dimensional path between two points, having length and width.

Value-is the lightness or darkness of a surface area

6 Tips on How to Draw Anything Accurately

1. Start by drawing shapes, not identifiable objects.

2. Consider the negative shapes as much as you do the positive shapes.

3. Visualize and draw the lines you can’t see in order to draw the visible lines accurately.

4. Draw connected shapes, not disconnected shapes

5. Draw light guidelines between shapes to better judge the distances between them.

6. Start by drawing the lightest values and build to the darkest.

Form Study- Give your shapes a light source, and work in some value, dark to light to give the illusion of 3-D FORM!

• Form

20/9/2011-Warm up-

Which one of these Paleolithic artworks below is shape and which one is form?

What is the difference?

Human with Feline Head on left & Spotted Horses and Hand Imprints on the right

Shape Shape is a 2-dimensional object (it is flat) It has

height and width but no depth.

Geometric shapes ---circles, squares and rectangles---are regular and precise. They

can be measured.

Organic shapes are irregular---seashells, leaves, flowers, etc.

Shape An artwork is often made up of positive and negative shapes.

Spotted horses and negative hand imprints, wall painting in the cave at Pech-Merle, Lot, France, ca. 22,000 BCE. Approx. 11’ 2” Long.

Form A form is 3-Dimensional. It has height, width AND depth. As with shapes,

Forms can be regular and precise or irregular and organic.

3-D art, such as sculptures, architecture and crafts, is composed of forms. In 2-D art, artists can only create the illusion of form.

Human with Feline head, from Hohlenstein-Stadel, Germany, ca. 30,000-28,000 BCE. Mammoth ivory, 11 5/8” high. Ulmer Museum, Ulm.

Prehistoric Art - Paleolithic (2 million years ago-13,000 BC.)

Paleolithic

• Animal Facing Left

• Human with Feline Head

• Venus of Willendorf

• Bison

• Spotted Horse & Negative Handprints

• Hall of Bulls

Animal facing Left, from the Apollo 11 Cave, Namibia, ca. 23,000 BCE. Charcoal on stone, approx. 5” x4 ¼”. State Museum of Namibia, Windhoek.

Venus of Willendorf Nude woman, from Willendorf, Austria, ca.

28,000-25,000 BCE. Limestone, approx. 4 ¼” high. Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Bison- Detail of a painted ceiling in the Altamira cave, Santander, Spain, ca. 12,000-11,000 BCE.

Each Bison approx. 5’ long. .

Hall of Bulls- Lascaux, Dordogne, France, ca. 15,000-13,000 BCE. Largest bull approx. 11’ 6” long.

.

Today’s Element Exercise-

• Line

• Value

• Shape

• Form

• Texture

• Space

• Color

As you have seen, lines can have many qualities:

They can be: curved or straight

Vertical horizontal diagonal

Thick or thin smooth or rough

Light or dark and continuous or broken

FORM- ABSTRACT SCULPTURE

Reflection In your workbook-

• Explain the metamorphosis of your artwork from line to form--

• What was most frustrating about this exercise?

• What was most successful?

Color is everywhere. In our clothes, the sky, trees, flowers, billboards designed to attract our

attention, on the web and on television.

Colors can also be symbolic, with meanings that change from culture to culture.

*What examples of color as symbolism can YOU think of? WRITE THEM DOWN!

27/9/2011 Warm up: Read and answer the question!

Color is a property of light. When we say an object is red, we mean that its surface absorbs certain wave lengths of light that we call red, We identify the object as red in color.

And FINALLY…. Color from Light

We are capable of seeing color because our eyes have light and color-sensitive receptors.

These receptors are called:

• rods (receptive to amounts of light)

• cones (sensitive to colors). Being able to see color is a sensation, just like smelling a pie fresh out of the oven or tasting your favorite meal.

• Different foods smell and taste different to each person, and likewise, no color is seen exactly the same by two people, because each person's rods and cones vary.

Retinal Fatigue:

If you stare fixedly at a green spot on white paper, you will cause retinal fatigue to the area of the retina where the spot is imaged. The fatigue will be specific to the green cones, and if you then stare at a blank sheet of white paper you

will see a magenta spot similar in size to your original green spot.

rods (receptive to amounts of light) and

cones (sensitive to colors). Being able to

see color is a sensation, just like smelling

a pie fresh out of the oven or tasting your

favorite meal.

Different foods smell and taste different to

each person, and likewise, no color is

seen exactly the same by two people,

because each person's rods and cones

vary.

Color Experiment Draw your color wheel so that there

are 12 spaces for color!

Color Red, Yellow and Blue are called

Primary colors (P)and are used to create the rest of the colors on the color wheel.

When you mix two primary colors together, you get a Secondary color (S). These colors are Orange (yellow and red), Green (blue and yellow) and violet (red and blue)

And when you mix a primary and a secondary color together you get a Tertiary or Intermediate color. These are yellow-green, yellow-orange, red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet and blue-green

Color Schemes An analogous color scheme is made up

of three or four colors that are adjacent

on the color wheel.

What set of analogous colors

are used in this example?

Color Temperatures Have you ever noticed that colors seem to have different temperatures?

Reds, Oranges and Yellows are warm colors. They remind us of the sun or fire and can add a feeling of excitement, boldness or happiness to a work of art. Warm colors make objects seem larger and appear to

advance in an artwork.

Greens, Blues, and Violets are cool

colors. They remind us of lakes,

distant mountains, sky and foliage.

Cool colors tend to be calm and

restful. They recede into the

distance and make objects seem smaller.

Homework- For Next Tues- Photograph- Color Trading Card

So far you should have completed line, value, shape, form & color!

*Next week we will finish the elements up with space and texture!

Final set of Trading Cards will be collected and graded on- Tuesday Oct. 11th

*Your understanding and application of each Element of Art

*Neatness/Creativity

Homework-

• Complete a SHAPE and FORM Trading Card–You may work in pen, pencil, marker etc.

Homework- • Browse the website/familiarize yourself!

• Complete a Line Trading Card– Create a design using line that represents your personality! You may work in pen, pencil, marker etc.

Homework-

• Complete a Value Trading Card– Create a design using line that represents your personality! You may work in pencil- or coloured pencil (using only ONE color).

• You Must make sure that you are working with a range of light to dark within your design.

How to Peer Critique with a PQP

• Praise- What has the artist done successfully in order to represent his/her personality by using the elements of art?

• Question- what is one thing that you don’t understand about the piece?

• Polish- what could they do to make the work better?