Explanation:
The Elements and Principles of Art
by Courtney Jordan
15 Essentials for Every Art Form
What if you had the keys to the artistic kingdom? With each of these essentials for making art, that is exactly what you have. Understanding and applying the building blocks of art (or the elements and principles of art, as they are often called) is what takes an artist from beginner to master.
In order to understand, deftly critique, and practice your chosen art form, you need to know the key concepts that it is built upon. Familiarity with elements of art (like color and line) and principles of art (proportion, rhythm, and contrast, among others) is what gives artists that fluency. With your knowledge of these, you will always be able to find the joy and excitement that can surround art…and for art lovers, there is nothing more appealing than that.
elements and principles of art: gallery
6 Elements of Art
Think of the elements of art as the arrows in your quiver or tools in a toolbox. You use them individually and in combination for any art making endeavor. For the visual arts, these are visual elements: color, form, line, shape, space, texture, and value.
1: Color
A three-pronged element of art, color includes hue, value, and intensity.
Hue is the color itself.
Value is the hue’s lightness or darkness and changes when white or black is added to it.
Intensity is the aspect of brightness and purity of a color. High intensity colors are bold and bright. Low intensity colors are faint and duller.
elements and principles of art: grant wood
Fall Plowing by Grant Wood
2: Form
For painters and draftsmen, form is the element of art that renders a three-dimensional form in two dimensions. In a lot of ways it is the heart of an art object — the form itself. It can enclose a volume and includes height, width and depth. A cube, a sphere, a cylinder and a pyramid are all different forms. Forms can also be formless — abstracted and free-flowing.
3: Line
Marks made on a surface are known as line. They start at a point and move along, creating space as they go. Lines can be two- or three-dimensional, describing form or the form itself, implied, or abstract. Creating a series of parallel lines to indicate form is a technique known as hatching. Crosshatching indicates more than one set of these lines laid overtop of each other at angles to model and indicate tone.
4: Shape
The element of art that is two-dimensional, flat, or limited to height and width. Usually a shape is enclosed.
5: Space
Space is the element of art through which both positive and negative areas are defined or a sense of depth is achieved in a work of art.
6: Texture
This aspect of art defines the way an art object or an element in a composition feels or looks as if it would feel if touched.
To take a deeper dive, check out 7 Tools for Texture in Watercolor.
elements and principles of art: rhythm
Grand Odalisque by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
9 Principles of Art
If the elements of art are your tools, the principles of art are how you put them to work. It is where the style of art manipulates its substance. Rhythm, harmony, balance, contrast, movement, proportion, and variety are the principles of art.
1: Rhythm
This principle of art describes the movement in or of an artwork. Rhythm is created by the variety and repetition of elements in a work of art that come together to create a visual tempo or beat.
2: Harmony
This is achieved when the elements of an artwork come together in a unified way. Certain elements are repeated yet still look and feel similar. Not monotony and not chaos, harmony is that perfectly honed combination of both.
