WRITING COMMENTS AND CRITIQUES

Please continue to upload your finished projects and comment on each others' work. Please comment specifically on how the student is successfully using the elements and principles of art and design to create the project. Constructive and kind comments on areas for potential improvement or reconsideration are also encouraged. Your posts should include at least one of the following art vocabulary words.

COMPOSITION: The arrangement of elements in a work of art. All works of art have an order determined by the artist. Composition creates a hierarchy within the work, which tells the viewer the relative importance of the imagery and elements included. Compositions can be symmetrical or asymmetrical. Successful compositions create stability and balance, establishing a center of interest and lead the eye around the work.

LINE: An identifiable path created by a point moving in space. It is one-dimensional and can vary in width, direction, and length. Lines often define the edges of a form. Lines can be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, straight or curved, thick or thin. They lead your eye around the composition and can communicate information through their character and directions. Kinds of line: Contour, implied, gestural, mechanical, vertical, horizontal etc. Line creates value, form, direction, movement, energy, pattern etc.

SHAPE & FORM define objects in space. Shapes have two dimensions—height and width—and are usually defined by lines. Forms exist in three dimensions, with height, width, and depth. Shape has only height and width.

SPACE: Real space is three-dimensional. Space in a work of art refers to a feeling of depth or three dimensions. It can also refer to the artist's use of the area within the picture plane. The area around the primary objects in a work of art is known as negative space, while the space occupied by the primary objects is known as positive space. Kinds of space: positive, negative, three-dimensional

COLOR: Light reflected off objects.
Color has three main characteristics: hue (red, green, blue, etc.), value (how light or dark it is), and intensity (how bright or dull it is). Colors can be described as warm (red, orange, yellow) or cool (green, blue, purple, gray), depending on which end of the color spectrum they fall.

TEXTURE: The surface quality of an object that we sense through touch. All objects have a physical texture. Artists can also convey texture visually in two dimensions by simulating texture. 

In a two-dimensional work of art, texture gives a visual sense of how an object depicted would feel in real life if touched.

THE PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN

CENTER OF INTEREST: An area that first attracts attention in a composition. This area is more important when compared to the other objects or elements in a composition. This can be by contrast of values, more colors, and placement in the format.

BALANCE: A feeling of visual equality in shape, form, value, color, etc. Balance can be symmetrical or evenly balanced or asymmetrical and un-evenly balanced. Objects, values, colors, textures, shapes, forms, etc., can be used in creating a balance in a composition.



HARMONY brings together a composition with similar units. If your composition was using wavy lines and organic shapes you would stay with those types of lines and not put in just one geometric shape. Harmony may also be described as “unity”.

CONTRAST offers some change in value creating a visual discord in a composition. Contrast shows the difference between shapes and can be used as a background to bring objects out and forward in a design. It can also be used to create an area of emphasis.

DIRECTIONAL MOVEMENT describes a visual flow through the composition. It can be the suggestion of motion in a design as you move from object to object by way of placement and position.

RHYTHM is a movement in which some elements reoccurs regularly (or repeat).