STUDIO FINAL STUDY GUIDE
ELEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES OF ART:
ELEMENTS OF ART:
Value is defined as the lightness & darkness of an area.
• Shading – A technique where the artist uses a drawing pencil to create dark and light values. This technique uses gradation and creates the most realistic rendering.
• Gradation: When the artist shades gradually from light to dark. This technique creates a realistic look.
• Highlight: The area receiving the greatest amount of light.
A value scale demonstrates values ranging from dark to light
Shape: This element of art refers to an enclosed space. Shape has two dimensions – height and width.
• Geometric Shapes: Any shape or form having a mathematical design – square, rectangle, etc.
• Organic Shapes: Shapes more closely related to nature.
Form: An element of art that is 3-dimensional having height, width and depth.
• Sculpture: a 3-dimensional object
Texture - An element of art that describes the way an object feels.
Actual Texture – The way an object ACTUALLY feels.
Implied Texture - This type of texture looks like it has texture but does not.
Space - The distances or areas around, between or within components of a piece.
Space can be positive or negative, open or closed, shallow or deep and two-dimensional or three-dimensional.
Sometimes space isn't actually within a piece, but the illusion of it is.
• Positive Space – the subject matter of a piece of artwork (the buildings in your perspective drawings, the letters in your name design, the instruments in your jazz collage)
• Negative Space – The empty area that surround the objects in a composition
Line - A line is an identifiable path moving in space. It can vary in width, direction, and length.
• Contour lines – define the edges and surface ridges of an object.
• Gesture lines: Lines that are quickly drawn to capture the expressive movement of a person.
• Blind Contour: The practice of creating a drawing by looking only at the object and not your paper.
PRINCIPLES OF ART:
Contrast The difference in elements of art that makes an object distinguishable from other objects.
Example: black and white = high contrast
Juxtaposition: the placement of elements side-by-side, with the intention of comparing
Unity - This principle of art refers to the visual quality of wholeness that is achieved in
a composition through overlapping, simplifying of colors and balance
Proportion - describes the size, location or amount of one element to another.
• Grid Drawing: This technique of drawing can be use to assist the artist in enlarging an image to retain proportion. (Featured Artist: Chuck Close)
Variety – This principle of design describes the changes between forms in a composition
Balance: This principle of art is concerned with equalizing visual forces, or elements, in a work of art.
• Asymmetrical: A formal balance where two sides are not identical.
• Symmetrical: A formal balance that is achieved when two halves of a composition are identical mirror images of each other.
• Radial Balance: Moves from the center
Emphasis - This principle of art occurs any time an element of a piece is given dominance by the artist.
Repetition - the repeated appearance of similar designs or features in a work of art.
ARTISTS AND ART MOVEMENTS:
Chuck Close - created large format portraits using the grid method.
Abstraction - This process or visual effect is characterized by the simplification and/or rearrangement of the image.
Cubism – An art movement where Artists broke up the subject matter, analyzed and reassembled it into an abstracted form.
Cubism Featured Artist: Pablo Picasso
Pop Art – Pop Art is a 20th century art movement that utilized the imagery and techniques of consumerism and popular culture.
Pop Art Featured Artist: Andy Warhol
ism – The suffix at the end of many English words that signifies a belief, practice, idea or art movement.
Non-Objective: Art that conveys an idea or expression that is not necessarily tied to anything real.
Self Portrait: a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist.
Portrait: A drawing or painting of a person.
Landscape – A drawing or painting of the natural environment.
Still Life: A drawing or painting of inanimate objects.
TWO POINT PERSPECTIVE: creates the illusion of 3-dimension.
Artists use two point perspective to show depth or space in their work.
Vanishing Point: A term used in perspective to describe the point on the horizon where parallel lines appear to meet. At the vanishing point, objects appear smaller and disappear.
Horizon Line: Where the land (or sea) and sky meet.
Parallel Lines: Lines that will never intersect (cross) one another.
Orthogonal Lines: Lines that converge at the vanishing point.
Vertical Line: A line that goes up and down and is perpendicular to the horizon line.
Birds-eye view: Where the observer would be stationed above the subject, looking down.
Worms-eye view: Where the observer would be stationed below the subject, looking up.
Atmospheric Perspective: In landscape drawing, the foreground would be rendered darker, the background is lighter, because of gases and pollution in the air.
Foreground: The part of the picture plane closest to the viewer. The foreground is rendered darker in a landscape.
TECHNIQUES and MORE TO KNOW!
Cross – hatching - This shading technique uses two or more sets of intersecting parallel lines to create value.
Cropping - This method is used by artists as a way to remove extra parts of an image.
Thumbnail Sketch – a small sketch used for planning
Critique – A written or spoken evaluation
Medium – An Artist’s materials
Composition – the arrangement of the elements of art.
Charcoal – A black or very dark colored, brittle drawing substance that consists mainly of carbon.
Logo – The name of a design used to illustrate a particular product or company.
Printmaking – An art technique where Artists print their designs multiple times after creating plate. Artists are able to mass duplicate their original drawings, making them more accessible to the public.
Subject Matter – The topic dealt with or represented in a work of art.
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