Elements of Art
Activity 1 – Introduction
1. View the presentation at:
http://www.slideshare.net/djmunson/elements-of-art-2009
2. As you go through, pause on each slide and discuss this with your students.
Activity 2 – Exploring the Elements
These are some suggested activities for working with the elements of art.
Line
- Contour drawings (drawing an object without looking at the paper.)
- Single line drawings (draw the same object without lifting the pencil from the paper)
- Try contour and single line drawings with different media such as soft pastels, charcoal and felt pens.
Shape
- Use a viewfinder (square hole cut in the centre of a piece of paper) to look at the shape of a particular part of a plant/animal/image and compare to others.
- Look at Salvador Dali’s paintings and discuss his unusual use and manipulation of shape.
Form
- Experiment with clay, creating different types of shapes and forms that you see in art.
- Create life-like objects using the clay then distort or manipulate them to create other forms like Dali.
Space
- Look at landscape paintings and discuss the definition and examples of colour giving the impression of space. (For example, the sky getting bluer into the distance and green trees getting darker as they’re further away)
- Look at various artworks and discuss foreground, middle-ground and background, as well as positive and negative space.
Colour
- Create a full colour wheel by mixing only the primary colours so students can understand the relationships between these. Discuss and define complementary and contrasting colours.
Value
- Explore shades and tints of colour when black or white is added. Create tonal lines of the primary and secondary colours.
- This ball activity is very effective and demonstrating and practising tonal qualities of line and shadow: http://www.studiocodex.com/valuepractice01.html
Texture
- Explore the classroom and school environment for unusual and interesting textures and use them to create a collage canvas.
- Study and discuss Vincent Van Gogh’s use of texture in his paintings.
1. View the presentation at:
http://www.slideshare.net/djmunson/elements-of-art-2009
2. As you go through, pause on each slide and discuss this with your students.
Activity 2 – Exploring the Elements
These are some suggested activities for working with the elements of art.
Line
- Contour drawings (drawing an object without looking at the paper.)
- Single line drawings (draw the same object without lifting the pencil from the paper)
- Try contour and single line drawings with different media such as soft pastels, charcoal and felt pens.
Shape
- Use a viewfinder (square hole cut in the centre of a piece of paper) to look at the shape of a particular part of a plant/animal/image and compare to others.
- Look at Salvador Dali’s paintings and discuss his unusual use and manipulation of shape.
Form
- Experiment with clay, creating different types of shapes and forms that you see in art.
- Create life-like objects using the clay then distort or manipulate them to create other forms like Dali.
Space
- Look at landscape paintings and discuss the definition and examples of colour giving the impression of space. (For example, the sky getting bluer into the distance and green trees getting darker as they’re further away)
- Look at various artworks and discuss foreground, middle-ground and background, as well as positive and negative space.
Colour
- Create a full colour wheel by mixing only the primary colours so students can understand the relationships between these. Discuss and define complementary and contrasting colours.
Value
- Explore shades and tints of colour when black or white is added. Create tonal lines of the primary and secondary colours.
- This ball activity is very effective and demonstrating and practising tonal qualities of line and shadow: http://www.studiocodex.com/valuepractice01.html
Texture
- Explore the classroom and school environment for unusual and interesting textures and use them to create a collage canvas.
- Study and discuss Vincent Van Gogh’s use of texture in his paintings.