ELEMENTSOF ART

Line is a mark made by a pointed tool - brush, pencil, stick, pen, etc. -- and is often defined as a moving dot. It has length. A line is created by the movement of a tool and pigment, and often suggests movement in a drawing or painting.

LINE

Line can be horizontal, vertical, diagonal, thick, thin, short, fat, and long. The variety of lines is almost endless, and manyadjectives can describe the quality of a line (nervous, soft, etc.) therefore, lines can be expressive and suggestive.

Contour Lines indicate the edges of forms or shapes and actually describe shapes and actually describe shapes and forms in the simplest way.

Line can be used to create values and textures. Hatching is the placing of many lines next to each other. Cross-hatching occurs when many parallel lines cross each other.

Gestural lines indicate action and physical movement. Our eyes follow the active lines As they swirl across the page.

Our eyes often read edges of objects (the lemon) as implied lines. The dots andshort lines also create implied lines moving across the page.

Mark Tobey’s painting,“Calligraphy in White”,Is all line. He actually drew with his brush, the repeated lines creating A complex pattern. The word “calligraphy” in the title refers to a quality of line that is thick and thin, varying with brush pressure, similar to Oriental brush writing and painting.Tobey’s lines are the subject of the painting and are not used to outline shapes or objects.

Variety in the thickness of lines createssurface interest.Some lines arethick; some are thin; and many are both thick and thin(Organic or calligraphic).

Value contrast inThe lines from Very dark to White let us seeThe layering of Line upon line. Because of the Layering of lines over lines, a Shallow depth isSensed.

The length of lines varies in Tobey’s “Picturewriting” techniquefrom dots to shortjabs, to long and fluid strokes. Someare geometric, others are organic.

Shape is an area that is contained within an implied line, oris seen and identified because of color or value changes. Shapes have two dimensions, length and width, and can begeometric or free-form. Design in painting is basically theplanned arrangement of shapes in a work of art.

SHAPE

All shapes can be described with two basic terms: 1) geometricshapes (angular with straight edges, also called rectilinear shapes;and 2) organic shapes (free-form, biomorphic, also called curvilinear shapes).

Shapes are eitherpositive or negative.The subject in a representational work is usually thepositive shape (the sheep), and the background isthe negative shape.

Shapes in nature are usually organic; leaves, tigers, trees, butterflies, mountains, clouds, etc. To draw or paint them,we must see their shapes (contours).

In abstract ornonobjectiveart, positive shapes are usually centralor featuredelements; negative shapes surround them.

Abstractionoften reducesthings to theirsimplest shapes.Margo Hoff has reduced people to flat S shapes to simplifying the start of a marathon raceto its basicelements.

Pablo Picasso’s painting,“The Three Musicians”, Is an abstract painting in which the three figures are simplified to an Arrangement of flat shapes. The artist used a variety of shapes in creating an image that resembles An interlocking jigsaw puzzle. Look for these shape varieties:Large, medium and small shapes.Flat and patterned shapes.Dark and light valued shapes.Geometric and organic shapes.Positive and negative shapes.Outlined and unoutlined shapes.

Some of Picasso’s imaginative shapesOf things. They include musical Instruments and a sheet of music. CanYou find more “thing” shapes?

Design shapes need not completely follow the contours of edges of things.Can you find these design shapes inPicasso’s painting?

Most of Picasso’s shapes are flat, but Several are patterned. Find thesePatterned shapes. Picasso used patterned shapes to add variety to his design.

Form describes volume and mass, or the three-dimensionalaspects of objects that take up space. Form can and should beviewed from many angles. When you hold a baseball, shoe, or small sculpture, you are aware of their curves, angles, indentations,extensions, and edges - their forms.

FORM

Form refers to three dimensional quality of objects.

This is a drawing of a Two-dimensional shape.

This is a drawing of a Three-dimensional form.

When looking at Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture group, “Assemblage of Sea Forms”, we think of underwater rocks and other sea-sculpted forms. When exhibited, these can be rearranged from time to time, similar to the way that naturerearranges rocks on a beach. How does value contrast help you “feel” the forms with your eyes?

Space can be felt in Hepworth’s sculpture group because of theclustering and overlapping of forms. Space is a strongelement in establishinga sense of form.

Space can be feltbetween the formsin this grouping(even in a flatphotograph). Thespace between and around objects helps us recognize and identify three-dimensional Forms.

Architectural forms usually contain enclosed spaces for various activities. Most are geometric forms, but some architects usecurvilinear forms in their building designs.

In nature, forms are easily identifiable because we are surroundedby them. Rocks, trees, mountains, flowers, animals, and peopleare examples of natural forms.

Realistic forms depict people, animals, birdsand plans as they mayactually appear.

Abstract forms, suchas this Eskimo stonecarving, simplify natural forms to their essential, basic character-istics. Nonobjective forms do not represent any natural forms.

Sculpted geometric Forms are angular, Squarish, cubistic and Straight-edged. Sculpted Organic forms are rounded, Flowing, undulating, and often bulbous.

The appearance of a sculpted form changes as we walk around it.

Value refers to dark and light. Value contrast help usto see and understand a two-dimensional work of art.This type can be read because of the contrast of darkletters and light paper. Value contrast is also evidentin colors, which enables us to read shapes in a painting.

VALUE

A gray scale shows ten values of gray from light to dark. The farther apart the values are on the scale, the more value contrast can be noted. Values next to each other on the scale have the least contrast.

Jean Metzinger’s painting, “Tea Time”,has strong value contrasts. The painting is cubist in style withangular fracturesand shapes. Line is used to create both geometric and curvilinear shapes. Follow the visual movement from thetea cup and hand atthe bottom over a light-valued visualpath upward to theface, which is the focalarea.

Color and value are closely related. Somepure colors (yellow andorange) are light in value; other pure huesare dark in value (violetand blue). A black andwhite photo of a full color painting helps you see the values of the colors thatan artist used.

High key paintings are made mostly of light values and contain a minimum of value contrast. Light values often suggest happiness, light, joy, and airiness.

Low key paintings make use of dark valued hues and generally contain little value contrast. Dark values oftensuggest sadness, depression, loneliness, and sometimes mystery.

Value Contrast is the difference between light and dark values.photographers use value contrasts to make black and white prints that are exciting and dramatic.

Ansel Adamss

The focal area of a painting can be created by emphasizing dark and light value contrasts or intense color. This is true in realistic, abstract and nonobjective paintings.

When photographing or painting landscapes, distant features are usually lighter in value than closer features. Depicting such value contrast in art is called atmospheric perspective.

Value Changes help us “feel” the roundness of a face or ball by showing us how light hits these forms and creates shadows onthem. The logical system of intense light and shadow contrastsis called chiaroscuro.

Actual space is a three-dimensional volume that can beEmpty or filled with objects. It has width, height, anddepth. Space that appears three-dimensional in a painting Is an illusion that creates a feeling of actual depth. VariousTechniques can be used to show such visual depth or space.

SPACE

Sculptures,architecture, and various craft piecesoccupy actual or real space. You are aware of actual space in a large room, in an open landscape, or lookingat a sculpture.

In two-dimensional art, the feeling of space is an illusion. Size can help us sense space. If people (or other objects) are large, they seem close, and we sense space between them and smaller people who seem farther away.

Aerial perspective or atmospheric perspective is a way of using color or value (or both) toShow space or depth. Distant elements appear lighter in value, have less details, and less intense colors.

If objects or people overlapin a painting we sense space between them. If overlapping is combined with sizedifferences. The sense of space is greatly increased.

Linear perspective is a way of organizing objects in space. One-point perspective is used if the artist is looking along a streetor directly at the side ofan object.

Two-point perspective is used when looking directly at the front Corner of a box, building, automobile, or other form. CombiningTwo-point perspective with light and shadow greatly increases theSense of space.

All horizontal lines converge at one of two vanishing points

This painting was done by a famous, yet untrained artist named Grandma Moses. Although charming, it is an example of how awkward buildings can looks if the artist doesn’t understand linear perspective.

Texture refers to the surface quality, both simulatedAnd actual of artwork. Techniques used in paintingServe to show texture, i.e. the dry brush techniqueProduces a rough simulated quality and heavy application of pigment with brush or other implement Produces a rough actual quality.

TEXTURE

Georges Rouault (roo-’oh)painted The Old King in oil paint, with heavy textures. The painting technique thatemphasizes actual texturesis called Impasto. Such textures can be applied witha stiff brush or spread on the canvas with a painting knife.Rouault wan an expressionistartist who emphasized emotionsrather than accuracy and design,yet the design quality of this work is strong and solid.

Focal area hasstrongest valuecontrasts.------

Contrast of smooth andtextured areas emphasizesheavy textures.

-----Broken lines and edges help to emphasize actual textures.

Color and value contrastshelp you “feel” the textures with your eyes.

Painting with adry brush produces visual textures.----

Actual Texture (also known as tactile texture) describesthe surface quality we can feel with our fingers.

Impasto paintings have actual texture.

Textures abound innature and in our environment. Thinkof a gravel path, tree bark, a brick, a cat’sfur, a burlap sack, or a stucco wall.

Simulated textures (also known as visual textures) occurwhen smooth painting surfaces (such as paper) appear to be textured.

Different textural painting techniques.

Textural variety is important to interior designers and architects who work with fabrics,wood, plaster, metal, glass, paper, plastic, and paint.

Collages often emphasizeTextures and the texturalContrasts of materials Such as papers, fabrics, fibers, wood, paint, and Natural objects. This Collage shows contrast of rough surfaces with smooth.

This collage is builtof various fabrics thathave actual textures, and the work has a surface that is roughto the touch.

COLOR

Color depends on light because it is made of light. Theremust be light for us to see color. A red shirt will not look red in the dark, where there is no light. The whiter the light, the more true the colors will be. A yellow light on a full color painting will change the appearance of all the colors.

August Renoir (ren-’wahr) painted Fruits from the Midi to Emphasize the color and richness of the vegetables and fruit of Southern France.

Cool green has warm reds and oranges in it to neutralize thebackground, making the purer

colors glow and come forward.

Blue and purpleshadows (insteadof gray and black) create a sense of form.

Shadows are cool.Warm red shapesseem to come forward.

White is an intense color (contains all colors)and comes forward in a painting

Neutralized red shapes go backin space---------------------

Dark purple formsare used to developstrong value ------------contrasts.

Highlights on fruit are white. White is pure, light color.

Color is the most expressive element of art. We see white because of how light reflects off of surfaces.

Add black to darken Pure color orange Add white to lightenColor valuescale

Gray value scale

Value refers to the lightness or darkness of a hue. Pure colors havevalues of their own. Yellow is a light value; purple is dark. If whiteis added to a hue, a lighter value is achieved, and is called a tint. If black is added, the value is deeper and is called a shade.