e.g. art app

• Whether an artist creates two-dimensional or three-dimensional art, works in a traditional medium like painting, or makes art using the latest technology, all artists use the same basic visual building blocks of form (elements) and strategies of visual organization (principles) to achieve visual unity.
• Personal View - When we are looking at art, when we find or “run into” an artwork or exhibition, we typically have an initial response or impression. This response to what we see (or hear, etc.) is formed by a lifetime of knowledge and experience and the culture and time in which we live.
• Personal View - The expression “Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder” gets at the subjective and personal nature of perception— and of the “first impression,” in particular. There’s nothing wrong with one’s first impression or response—it is, after all, a personal response. It’s your point of view.
• Formal Analysis - is a close and analytical way of looking at and discussing a work of art. It includes describing the work in terms of various design elements, such as color, shape, texture, line, lighting, mass, and space, as well as a discussion of how those elements have been used (the design principles).
• Formal analysis - moves beyond description of the artwork and its content by linking the elements of the work to the effects that they have on the viewer. This is discussion of the artwork from the point of view of “here is the artwork, and this is what I see and can make sense of . . .”
• Formal Analysis - uses art terminology to consider the effects of an artwork the viewer (you), and it’s a process that enables us to think about and consider the overall meaning of the artwork.
• Content - is simply the subject matter of an artwork. It’s the images you see—like the trees in a painting of a forest, or the town, the sky, and the moon in Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
• Content - can play a role in formal analysis, but the content aspect is less important than the “artwork” aspect.
• Content - is revealed though the formal properties of the work and may be evident on several levels. There is the immediate or obvious content of the work. For instance, it may be an historical scene, a landscape, a portrait, an interior, a functional object, or an abstraction. Beyond this the content may become more complex.
• Content - It is about what is happening in the works, what meaning you derive from them, and whether they create a particular mood or reaction or not. Sometimes content can be difficult to assess because it may be ambiguous or obscure. The formal elements of the work and its title can often help to read the content, as can recurring patterns, motifs or symbols that may have special significance.
• Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1830, oil paint, 73.7 cm × 92.1 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York City

  
• Elements of art, like mediums, are present in every in every art form. The elements are the abstract aspect comprises the artwork while mediums are materials used by the artist to create the artwork. All arts have certain elements of their own.
• 1. Point

  • ❖  A point is the visual element upon which all others are based. It can be defined as a singularity in space or, in geometric terms, the area where two coordinates meet.
  • ❖  When artists mark a simple point on a surface, (also referred to as the ground), they immediately create a figure-ground relationship. That is, they divide the work between its surface and anything added to it.
• Point


  • Can be used to create forms
  • Pointillism is a style of painting made famous by the French artist Georges Seurat in the late nineteenth century
  • Pointillist group created paintings by juxtaposing points—or dots—of color that optically mixed to form lines, shapes and forms within a composition
• Our eyes differentiate between the two, and their arrangement has everything to do with how we see a final composition
• 2. Line

  • ❖  Essentially, when you put two or more points together you create a line. A line can be lyrically defined as a point in motion.
  • ❖  There are many different types of lines, all characterized by their length being greater than their width. Lines can be static or dynamic depending on how the artist chooses to use them. They help determine the motion, direction, and energy in a work of art. We see line all around us in our daily lives; telephone wires, tree branches, jet contrails and winding roads are just a few examples.
• • ❖  Actual lines are those that are physically present. The edge of the wooden stretcher bar at the left of Las Meninas is an actual line, as are the picture frames in the background and the linear decorative elements on some of the figures’ dresses.
• Implied lines


  Lines created by visually connecting two or more areas together
• Implied lines in the painting

  • The space between the Infanta Margarita and the meninas (maids of honor) to the left and right of her
  • Visually connecting the space between the heads of all the figures in the painting
• Implied lines


  • Set up a diagonal relationship that implies movement
  • Create a sense of jagged motion that keeps the lower part of the composition in motion, balanced against the darker, more static upper areas of the painting
• Implied lines


  Can also be created when two areas of different colors or tones come together
• ❖ Straight or classic lines provide structure to a composition. They can be oriented to the horizontal, vertical, or diagonal axis of a surface. Straight lines are by nature visually stable, while still giving direction to a composition. In Las Meninas, you can see them in the canvas supports on the left, the wall supports and doorways on the right, and in the background in matrices on the wall spaces between the framed pictures. Moreover, the small horizontal lines created in the stair edges in the background help anchor the entire visual design of the painting.
• ❖ Expressive lines are curved, adding an organic, more dynamic character to a work of art. Expressive lines are often rounded and follow undetermined paths. In Las Meninas, you can see them in the aprons on the girls’ dresses and in the dog’s folded hind leg and coat pattern.
• ❖ Expressive lines There are other kinds of line that encompass the characteristics of those above yet, taken together, help create additional artistic elements and richer, more varied compositions. Refer to the images and examples below to become familiar with these types of line:
• Outline,orcontourlineisthesimplestofthese.Theycreate a path around the edge of a shape. In fact, outlines define shapes.
• Crosscontourlinesfollowpathsacrossashapetodelineate differences in surface features. They give flat shapes a sense of form (the illusion of three dimensions) and can also be used to create shading.
• Hatch lines are repeated at short intervals in generally one direction. They give shading and visual texture to the surface of an object.
• Crosshatch lines provide additional tone and texture. They can be oriented in any direction. Multiple layers of crosshatch lines can give rich and varied shading to objects by manipulating the pressure of the drawing tool to create a large range of values.
• alligraphiclinesusequicknessandgesture,moreakinto paint strokes, to imbue an artwork with a fluid, lyrical character.
• Shape

  • ❖  A shape is defined as an enclosed area in two dimensions.
  • ❖  Shapes are always implied and flat in nature. They can be createdin many ways, the simplest by enclosing an area with an outline.
  • ❖  They can also be made by surrounding an area with other shapes or the placement of different textures next to each other—forinstance, the shape of an island surrounded by water.
• Shape Because they are more complex than lines, shapes do much of the heavy lifting in arranging compositions. The abstract examples below give us an idea of how shapes are made.
• Shapes animate figure-ground relationships. We visually determine positive shapes (the figure) and negative shapes (the ground). One way to understand this is to open your hand and spread your fingers apart. Your hand is the positive shape, and the space around it becomes the negative shape.
• Space

  • ❖  Space is the empty area surrounding real or implied objects.
  • ❖  Humans categorize space: (a) Outer space that limitless void weenter beyond our sky; (b) inner space which resides in people’s minds and imaginations, and (c) personal space, the important but intangible area that surrounds each individual and which is violated if someone else gets too close. Pictorial space is flat, and the digital

  realm resides in cyberspace. Art responds to all of these kinds of space.
• Color❖Color is the most complex artistic element because of the

  combinations and variations inherent in its use.

  • ❖  Humans respond to color combinations differently, and artists studyand use color in part to give desired direction to their work.
• Color

  • The study of color in art and design often starts with color theory. Color theory splits up colors into three categories: Primary, secondary, and tertiary. The basic tool used is a color wheel, developed by Isaac Newton in 1666. A more complex model known as the color tree, created by Albert Munsell, shows the spectrummade up of sets of tints and shades on connected planes.
• 1. Traditional color theory is a qualitative attempt to organize colors and their relationships. It is based on Newton’s color wheel and continues to be the most common system used by artists.
• • The primary colors are red, blue, and yellow. You find them equidistant from each other on the color wheel. These are the elemental colors; not produced by mixing any other colors, and all other colors are derived from some combination of these three.
• • The secondary colors are orange (mix of red and yellow), green (mix of blue and yellow), and violet (mix of blue and red).
• • The tertiary colors are obtained by mixing one primary color and one secondary color. Depending on amount of color used, different hues can be obtained such as red-orange or yellow-green. Neutral colors (browns and grays) can be mixed using the three primary colors together.
• • White and black lie outside of these categories. They are used to lighten or darken a color. A lighter color (made by adding white to it) is called a tint, while a darker color (made by adding black) is called a shade.