Speaker A
Hello, welcome to my Elements of Art and Principles of Design video presentation. I made this video because there are a lot of videos about the principles of design and elements of art out there, but I felt like a lot of them
An educational video exploring key elements of art and principles of design with classroom focus by Christopher Sykora.
Key Takeaways
- Elements of art and principles of design vary in number and definition but share core concepts.
- Visual literacy is crucial for interpreting and creating effective visual compositions.
- Line quality and placement can dramatically influence the viewer’s perception and emotional response.
- Principles of design like balance and unity provide structure and harmony in art.
- Understanding these elements and principles benefits artists working in any medium.
Summary
- The video addresses common disagreements about the number and definitions of elements of art and principles of design.
- Focuses on five main elements of art: line, shape, color, value, and texture.
- Highlights key principles of design including balance, pattern, emphasis, space, proportion, unity, and rhythm.
- Discusses how different art mediums interpret elements like line differently, such as photography versus drawing.
- Emphasizes the importance of visual literacy in understanding and navigating visual art and digital media.
- Explains how the brain perceives two-dimensional images as three-dimensional, using optical illusions as examples.
- Provides examples of how line quality affects the emotional and visual impact in artworks.
- Clarifies distinctions between related principles such as unity and harmony, and proximity and space.
- Demonstrates how principles of design apply across various art forms including painting, photography, sculpture, and design.
- Encourages viewers to use these concepts to enhance composition and meaning in their own art.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Overview
- 01:55Disagreements on Elements and Principles
- 03:38Visual Literacy and Perception
- 05:18Line as an Element of Art
- 06:54Shape and Its Characteristics
- 10:06Value and Color
- 11:40Texture and Its Role
- 13:22Principles of Design: Balance and Unity
- 16:34Focal Points and Movement in Design
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
were geared towards certain domains and not enough were focused on classroom uses. So, I just decided to make my own, partially also because there's a lot of disagreement on what the five elements and principles of design are. So,
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without further ado, I just want to jump into this video. So, as I said, there's kind of disagreement on how many there are and what they are. Here's a list of the ones that I wanted to include. So, I
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have, for the elements of art, we have line, shape, color, value, and texture. And I'll be doing the highlighted versions, but so there's also form, space, contrast, and size, to name a few others that are also included in the elements of art. I
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just want to focus on the top five in this video. The principles of design have a lot more disagreement and variation between the ones that are used, and again, I'll be focusing on the highlighted ones. And I
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believe that the three big principles of design are balance, pattern, and emphasis. And I'll also be talking about space, proportion, unity, and rhythm. Harmony, proximity, scale, movement, contrast, hierarchy are also often included in the principles of design. I've seen five,
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I've seen lists of seven, eight, nine, ten, even eleven. Some of these could be combined. So, for instance, I believe that unity is very similar to harmony and sometimes can be used interchangeably. Proximity and space are often included to be the
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same, even though they can speak to different specifics. Their broad elements are similar, and contrast is sometimes found in the principles of design, though I believe it makes much more sense being in the elements of art due to its nature
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and connection with value. Movement, for instance, is often connected with rhythm. Sometimes people see those as different things. Scale, size, those are sometimes used as well. Proportion and scale could be used together, and then hierarchy is something that
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really speaks to design elements rather than the other forms of art. But the principles of design are useful in any medium, really. Drawing and painting, photography, design, three-dimensional art like sculpture or pottery, all of these different mediums use the
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principles of design and elements of art. Some might include it in a slightly different lens, but also they share a lot of different definitions as well. So, for instance, with line, we have a photograph here by Michael Drexler where this really
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speaks to the idea of leading lines, how lines can draw you into an image. This is very powerful and often used in the photography medium, and it's also a part of painting and drawing and other design and three-dimensional art
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as well. But one of the things that stands out maybe in the differences between photography and drawing is that in photography, lines just tend to come up as a nature of being a line. So, if you're photographing lines, it's
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just about kind of capturing lines that move throughout a piece, whereas drawing gets very specific and focuses on the quality of line. Drawing and painting will look at: Is it a curved line? Is it a bold line? Is it a
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straight line? What is the quality of line? And these are some of the differing elements that show up and how mediums kind of look at it. Visual literacy is a big element of what this is all about.
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The elements and principles of design, specifically the principles of design, very much deal with making and composing art. So, where you place things, how you make them, what kind, you know, what's the quality, what's the color,
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what does the line look like? These communicate visual aesthetics, but they can also have deeper meanings and/or metaphors as well. And it also speaks to the power of visual literacy, just like everybody needs to learn how to read
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in order to navigate and have power in their worlds. So, it is true with visual literacy. It's a visual vocabulary that's increasingly vital in our world of a digital revolution where our brains evolved for a time that did not involve
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two-dimensional surfaces, two-dimensional screens that are meant to look three-dimensional. And this is very important because your brain evolved during this time. It doesn't necessarily understand that it's looking at a flat screen, and it makes assumptions about its world
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that are best for survival in a world that doesn't exist anymore. It's why we see these two tables on the left as being very different in size and shape. The one on the left looks like it's going further back into space,
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so therefore it looks longer and thinner, and the one on the right looks like it's more wide and fat. But the truth is that those two tables are exactly the same size, and your brain is being tricked
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because this is a two-dimensional surface. The drawing is on a two-dimensional screen, but it's meant to look three-dimensional, and your brain doesn't know about that. It thinks that those are three-dimensional things. And if you, if you don't believe me that those two
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tables are the same size, take a look at this. So, you can see that when they move the green, it's exactly the same size, and your brain is just playing tricks on you. It's making assumptions, and a lot of this speaks to visual
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literacy. The more that you understand visual literacy, visual elements that are in the world, the more power you have in navigating that digital revolution. So, without further ado, let me get to the elements of art. The ones I'm about to go over are
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line, shape, color, value, and texture. Let's begin with line. As I said, line can vary in its meaning across different mediums. In the painting and drawing realm, what we're really doing is talking about the quality of lines. So, in that image on the
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top left, you can see that there's a lot of different types of line, different colors of line. Some are kind of like scratchy lines, some are more smooth lines, long, some are straight, some are curved, some are bold, some are thin. In
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photography, just capturing lines can be a very strong element and create some things like repetition and pattern, which are principles of design that I'll talk about in a little bit. Or the image on the bottom left has a lot of rhythm in it
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because it has repeating elements but changes and has movement in it. And if we look at the artwork of de Kooning in the top right portions of the screen, you'll see his painting of a bull. Those lines
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have very thick elements to it. They're very strong lines. He's painting a bull, and therefore he gives it strength with those quality of line versus the image on the right where the lines are a lot thinner and kind of
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have more of a contour element to it. And you can see right there just the difference in two and the same artist applying a different texture of line to create a very different feeling. And that's something you want to think about
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when you're thinking about line. Lines that are bold tend to feel like they're closer to us. Lines that are thin tend to feel like they're further away from us. And how can we use those lines?
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Can we use those lines to lead people in a direction, maybe a focal point? Shape: line is a one-dimensional thing. Shape is a two-dimensional element. So, if a line, if you have just a line going across, that's one dimension.
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If that line comes around and meets itself into a square, triangle, whatever shape, it becomes a shape, and it becomes two-dimensional, right? So, it's really important to be aware that you are three-dimensional beings, but you live in
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a world that you see as two dimensions because your world can be displayed on a flat screen. And shape is, you know, just what it sounds like. It's about recognizing shapes. I have the artworks of Sonia
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Delany in the middle there that focus a lot on different types of shapes, overlapping shapes, how they come together, the works of Andy G
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elements of value and color as well in his work and line uh but shapes are a repeating element and a lot of pattern that comes comes into it which we'll talk about as well when we get to the principles of design so recognizing
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and finding shapes in nature in the world or creating them in a way to uh create interesting compositions and in the top left we have piet mondrian a very famous artist that simplified his forms down to an abstracted element where they just
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become pixels uh in the digital world we can think a lot about how pixels would relate to that moving into color which is another element of art another big one uh again it's very self-explanatory it's the use of color
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think about color schemes so in the bottom left image you see that triangle going from what are usually uh conceived as being the primary colors although if you're talking about additive or subtractive types of color um the the more
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appropriate colors for the primary colors would be magenta cyan and yellow as more shown in the top right color wheel but color can be used in a lot of different ways if we use it to create emphasis which is a
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principle design we'll talk about obviously with that image in the middle we're drawn into the circle into the light but it's also yellow surrounded by red and then black so it stands out more think of the colors of the rainbow the
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light spectrum right use of color is very important how we place colors next to other colors changes the context of those colors and a lot of the elements and a lot of the principal design are very much focused
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on context moving into value um value is you know kind of think of the shades of a color could have different values but value simply is a movement of gradient from a light to a dark and everything in between
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this is going to stand out when we talk about shading but it also comes into play with looking at photograph as well photographs as well because there are photographs that have a a strong value range where you have
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your whites your light grays moving into darker grays into darker darker grays and then completely black like the image in the middle and this can is very important to create form so when you have a sh when you have
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a line it's one dimension when you have a shape it's two dimensions so a circle would just be two dimensions but this ball in the bottom left corner has form that's because it has value that makes it look
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three-dimensional as existing in a three-dimensional space the opposite of having value as being would be high contrast or positive negative space like the photograph on the right done by mason arthur where he photographed a black individual with a white uh
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tank top shirt and a white background and that has a high contrast there's not a strong value range it goes basically from bright white to bright black it's a positive negative image so value speaks to the range of shades that you
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have uh within an image texture another element of art um i think an often overlooked element of art is very important the bottom left picture is of kind of uh it's rust with some blue paint over it you can see
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the elements have worn out this whatever this metal is over the years and that texture is very powerful photographing textures is a a really great subject and just walking around and seeing where there's rust where there's water shiny elements right contrasting
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possibly with with rougher elements but in painting uh your brush strokes speak a lot to um texture so we have a very famous painting by van gogh on the left starting night how he used a lot of little brush strokes
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a lot of different colors to create a certain type of texture versus the uh the painting in the middle where it's much more smooth and and and lightly applied and there's not as much variation between the colors creates a much different texture versus
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the painting on the right that's kind of done in like with you could see elements of a palette knife being in there scratchy elements it has a very rough texture to it and painters should uh an artist should
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seek to create texture in the arts that they're making that's a very important element of art and then even in drawing in the bottom image you can see how we can draw different textures as well and a lot of times texture is implied
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where you can kind of feel the texture even though you can't actually feel it because it's on a two-dimensional surface so let's shift to the principles of design i'm going to go over balance emphasis pattern space proportion unity and rhythm i'm going to
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begin with the big three in my opinion the strongest ones that are often evident in in artwork and utilized and really speak to how our eyes are drawn to them a lot of this has to do with how our brains
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evolved and what our brains have evolved to like seeing it's important to realize that you see with your uh brain and not with your eyes so with this with balance we have three different types of balance we have
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symmetry which means that it's the same on the left side as it is on the right side you have asymmetry which means that it's not the same on the left as it is on the right even though the
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image of the rocks in the middle has balance to it because those rocks are balancing uh that would also be an example of earth art and this was done by dimitri otis this photograph um but it also has balance because those
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rocks are balancing so it's asymmetrical but it has balance as well and then there's radial balance which means that it's the same all the way around think of mandalas think of flowers as being radial and again thinking of the context of how
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we can have metaphor and aesthetics speak to this the yin yang or yin yang as a lot of people say uh is a metaphor for balance in life when you have kind of asymmetrical elements two contrasting elements coming together
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to make a hole this would also be a good example of unity or harmony the image in the bottom middle is a good example of symmetry which is the same on the left as it is on the right
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and then the same thing with the photograph on the top right we have a lot of elements of line in this piece so this could also be something that speaks to line but it's a it's a symmetrical element in that it's
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the same on the left as it is on the right balance is a really big powerful uh principal design it creates structure because there's strength in imbalance and think of like pictures of buildings that really stand out and
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buildings feel very strong not just because of their their size but photographs of building also have strength because balance has strength moving on to emphasis which is a really another important principle design not that it's mandatory but a lot of
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strong good works of art have strong focal points we like to have our eyes be able to focus on something it brings calm to otherwise chaotic images often but emphasis really speaks to or focal point where your eye
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is drawn what do you see first what is the most powerful element and i spoke to this earlier how color can be a way of making things stand out we can use a variety of the elements of art and principle design
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to create an emphasis um like the yellow and orange painting in the bottom left uh stands out the circle stands out amongst the black circles so we're obviously drawn to the yellow and the orange um the posters done by ethel trick uh
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which there's a close-up of the triangles on top uh the the red and yellow and orange triangle stands out amongst all the grayscale triangles there's another example of one of his posters there proportion uh i highly recommend looking up his
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posters as for other examples of the principles of design and then we have a photograph on the right here uh which also depicts a strong focal point in that uh the the leaf is framing our focal point which is an
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eye and eyes are often strong focal points we're more drawn to circles uh than squares a lot of that has to do with human head is circular our eyes are circular and humans are drawn to those elements we're drawn to people's eyes
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so if there's an eye in an image it's often that that will be the focal point and because it it uh this photograph blocks out all the rest it makes for an even stronger focal point and you also have kind of that leading
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line in the leaf leading to it pattern another very strong principle design that often comes up in in artwork um is really about repetition and pattern is exact so if we look at the a b a b a b a b a b
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you know what's coming next right it's going to be a if there's more variation in that pattern it starts to become more rhythm which we'll speak about in a little bit but when it's exact it's pattern and pattern is a very
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overwhelming to our eyes we're drawn to it because it's it's it's intense right pattern has a lot of intensity to it it can radiate when you use color in certain ways and it's very powerful in that it draws our eyes
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and those first three are really all about that power that uh they they possess with how the human eye is drawn to it how the brain is interested in those images space or proximity which could be different uh speaks to two basic elements so how
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you're using a space where are things lined up uh if we get into composition we get into elements of like the golden ratio um size and scale or the rule of thirds meaning that where the focal point is is
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in the middle or is it in the top right bottom right left right uh bottom left corners right so where are you placing your focal point so with the image uh in the bottom middle you have a cluster of circles
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that are in the top left corner so that is not a a centered focal point so the use of space is creating a lot of negative space in the sense that there's a lot of white well you with the image on the
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next to that the circles were like drawn in much closer to it we're cropping into it so how are you using that space do you want to have a lot of negative space a lot of white space or do you want to draw and move closer
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and create intimacy but there's also positive negative in the sense that the photograph of that creek going through the snow through the land that has a lot of snow the white is negative space in the black is positive space
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but really it's a high contrast image where that's all we have so that black the black water the really dark water creates a line that kind of moves through this space and it's also why another element of of
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optical illusions for do you see a candelabra in the image or the two faces illusion i'm sure most of you are familiar with that are you looking at the negative space or are you looking at the positive space
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what do you see do you see both at the same time i'm always a sucker for posters that use great positive negative space um and the the wolverine poster is a good example of that and what's kind of cool about that is if
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you look at it in certain ways you could see how that could easily become like two batman images looking at each other within that space and how it's used but it's a very simple use of positive negative space
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and again we can also talk about the spacing of things the proximity of things how close are they together so do you have like the circles close together or are they far apart right so proportion speaks to the scale but really it's
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about the relationship of scale um to each other so for instance in that painting with the chick we know that the proportion is kind of off because that baby chick is much larger than the human and that's not how things are in reality
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and so we're drawn to that image because it is playing on our sense of proportion versus the the photo in the middle um with the two dogs you have basically the largest dog breed next to the smallest dog breed
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uh chihuahua and a great dane and again it plays on our sense of proportion in the sense that both our dogs one is very large one is small and it makes for an interesting picture but this also speaks to in the in the
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arts the proportions and scales of things that we see um knowing that the human head is symmetrical and how things are are proportionate to each other within the human head given that um everybody's eye everybody's head is five eyes wide
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um everybody's eyes are in the middle of the head and the layout of the nose and mouth is all proportioned in every human being so proportion is a really important principle designed to be aware of and how things scale and relate to each
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other unity is about things coming together to make one this could be as expressed as harmony i like to focus on the term of unity because i think it kind of conveys a wider a wider breadth of different elements in this principle
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design but in the deer you can see that there's a bunch of of kind of long lines uh oval oval-esque kind of lines that come together they're separate pieces but they're coming together to make one image of a deer um a very famous
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kind of example of this would be two hands coming together to form one and in the image in the top uh middle it also kind of emphasizes that world element bringing it to another level um to kind of create a sense of unity
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both visually aesthetically but also in metaphor and the image on the bottom you have a lot of different shapes coming together to create one shape so a mandala would have a sense of unity in that there's a lot of different
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elements patterned to it but it's all coming together to make one but again we can also have this in metaphor on the top right photo this is a photograph from an ex-student of mine uh you can see it find him on instagram
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at baileyblackphoto um this is the image taken of recent black lives matter protests and you can also create a sense of metaphor and that all of these people are separate individuals but they're coming together under one cause so
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there's a sense of unity rhythm as i mentioned with pattern has similarities but rhythm is really when there's a sense of movement and sometimes it's expressed as movement alone but i like to call it rhythm um and so you have repeating elements
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but there's a movement to them right so if you look at the lines uh that are moving in the image on the left they they change directions so if it was just those lines going straight up and it was just like a b a b
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a b you would uh that would be pattern but because there's change in that because of this variation because they move downward and upward it becomes rhythm and i often say that you can kind of hear rhythm when you're looking at an image
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in the sense that it creates like a sound the picture of the eiffel tower in the middle for instance has a lot of different principles of design coming together it is symmetrical it has elements of pattern but those
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lines and movement of line which is an element of art create rhythm right like the image on the top right where you have repeating elements but there's kind of that that swerve curved element to it that make it have more of a rhythm
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element and this kind of concludes uh the principle design video for you today and like i said there's a lot more you can look it up google principal design look for different examples there's a lot of videos on youtube that are also really
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strong that will give you a different sense of it but these are the basics and thanks for watching
Topics:elements of artprinciples of designvisual literacyline qualitybalance in artart educationChristopher Sykoraart compositiondesign principlesart mediums
