The Elements of Art

When you, the artist, create a work of art, you will be faced with a number of questions:

1.What colors will I use?2.Will the painting as a whole appear to be smooth

or rough to the touch?3.Will the objects in the painting look flat and two-

dimensional, or will they appear deep and realistic?

How an artist answers these and other questions determines how the finished work will look

After completing these lessons, you will be able to: Name the seven elements of art Identify the three properties of color Name the different kinds of line Explain the difference between shapes

and forms Explain how we experience texture Experiment with the elements of art

Words to learnanalogous colors × color wheel ×

complementary colors form × hue × intensity × lineline quality × line variation ×

monochromatic colors motif × shape × space × texture × value

The Visual Language of Art

Since the earliest times people have used the language of art to speak to each other. Early artwork, such as cave paintings, show that humans were writing in pictures some 12,000 years before the invention of the alphabet.

“A picture is worth a thousand words”In a very real sense, this saying

is true. The frightened mother was locked in a terrible struggle with the phantom, who greedily eyed her child. “No!” the mother’s wide eyes protested. “No—you can never have him!” As her heart raced wildly, the mother clutched her little boy to her body with the strength of 10 men. But no matter how hard she fought, little by little she felt her grip weaken. Slowly—ever so slowly—the child was slipping from her fingers. In the end, she was no match for the phantom. Death, she knew in that awful final instant, would soon claim another helpless victim.

The frightened mother was locked in a terrible struggle with the phantom, who greedily eyed her child. “No!” the mother’s wide eyes protested. “No—you can never have him!” As her heart raced wildly, the mother clutched her little boy to her body with the strength of 10 men. But no matter how hard she fought, little by little she felt her grip weaken. Slowly—ever so slowly—the child was slipping from her fingers. In the end, she was no match for the phantom. Death, she knew in that awful final instant, would soon claim another helpless victim.

The Vocabulary of Art

o Every language has its own word system, or vocabulary

o Before you speak a language, you should at least know some of the words in its vocabulary

o Art, too, has a vocabulary all its owno Instead of words, however, the

vocabulary of art is made up of seven visual elements

An element of art is a basic visual symbol an artist uses to create visual art

Color | Line | Shape | Form | Space | Texture

| Value

The way we put words together to form a sentence, the artist puts the visual elements together to make a statement.