Lessons · Teaching · the elements of art, which are what you point at
The seven things you can point at in any picture
The elements of art are line, shape, form, colour, value, texture and space. They are the nouns of looking: the things physically present in a work that anybody can point at and name, before any judgement is made about whether it is good.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
In beta. This lesson was written for Hone and has not yet been checked by a state certification officer. Practice material, not professional advice. What that means.
What it is for
A generalist teacher needs a vocabulary that lets thirty children talk about a picture without saying 'I like it'. The elements are that vocabulary, and they are what the examination asks about, because they are the part of art that is decidable rather than a matter of taste.
How to think about it
Learn them as things you can point at. Line is a mark with length. Shape is flat and enclosed; form is the same idea with volume. Colour has three properties of its own. Value is lightness and darkness. Texture is how a surface feels or looks as though it would feel. Space is what is in front, behind and between.
Worked example
Shape is two-dimensional, form is three: a circle against a sphereThe pair that appears most often on the paper, and the one children mix up first.
Colour has hue, value and intensity: which colour, how light, how strongHue is the name, value is how much white or black is in it, intensity is how vivid.
Value is the element that makes a drawing look solidA line drawing becomes a form the moment shading arrives, which is value doing the work.
Space includes positive and negative: the object, and the shape of the gap around itTeaching a child to draw the gap rather than the chair is a real and very effective exercise.
Your turn
Name the element that is shape with volume added.
A circle is a shape; a sphere is a
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Confusing an element with a principle. Colour is an element, something present in the work. Balance is a principle, something done with the elements. The examination asks you to sort them, so the distinction is worth more than any single definition.
Now you try
Next in Teaching
- The principles are what you do with the elementsthe principles of design, which are what you do with them
- What each material is actually good formedia and processes, and what each one is good for
- Enough history to place a work, and no pretendingart across time and cultures, without pretending to be an expert