A critical view of visual elements for artistic creation
Design elements are the basic units of a work of art such as a painting, drawing, or any other visual piece. They are the ingredients used in the creation of any artistic piece. Design elements used in art include point, line, shape, plane, color, space, texture, weight, and value. They are line, shape, form, color, space, and texture. The artist puts the visual elements together to make a statement in art in the same way that we put words together to form a sentence. Every artist must know and understand them.
Line: is the product of a moving point of a marking tool, such as a pencil that creates a path of connected points on paper. This path of connected points or mark left by a moving point is known as a line. The line is defined as the path of a point through space. This indicates that movement is needed to create a line. Examples of lines in the natural and man-made environment include tree leaves and branches, rivers, the outline of a bird, the outlines of electrical appliances such as televisions, speakers, computers, etc. A skillful artist uses lines to control the movement of the viewer’s eyes. Lines guide the viewer’s eye into, around, and out of the visual images of a work of art.
Dot: It is a small round dot. It is usually created from the tips of writing tools such as pencil, pen, crayon, etc. Pebbles, fruits, human heads are examples of points in nature.
Shape: A shape is defined as a closed area. It is an area that protrudes from the adjoining or surrounding space due to a defined or implied boundary. This area is clearly marked by one or more of the other five visual elements of art. It is the artist’s unique way of representing ideas in two dimensions. The shapes are flat. They are limited to only two dimensions: length and width. A shape can have an outline or a boundary around it. Examples of shapes in the natural and artificial environment include human head shapes, stones, fruits, rectangles, squares, circles, etc.
Shape: It is an object with three dimensions, therefore, length, width (width) and depth (height). It is the shape of volume or mass. The shapes can be grouped into two, namely geometric shapes and organic shapes. Geometric shapes include tables, pots, statues, etc. while examples of organic forms are stones, trees, etc. The only difference between shape and form is that shapes don’t have depth, but shapes do.
Space: It is considered as an unlimited area. It is the distance between, around, above, below and within forms and masses. It is a measurable distance between preset points. A void or void in which other elements are updated or seen is space. Spaces can be seen in two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms. There are two types of space, positive space which is the space occupied by objects in an image and negative space which is the space around objects in a composition or image.
Texture: This is the character of the surface or the quality of the materials. It refers to how things feel or look like they would feel if they were touched. This can be smooth, rough, coarse, hard or soft. Texture can be particularly experienced through two of our senses, thus the sense of sight and the sense of touch. However, the texture can be perceived in the mind. Texture comes in four basic forms: real, simulated, abstract, and invented.
Mass: The implied or actual volume, weight, size, or magnitude of an object. In a two-dimensional drawing or painting, mass refers to a large area or shape of a color.
Color – plays an important role in design elements. It is the reflection of white light on an object or sensations created in the eye by rays of decomposed light. Color can vary in degrees of opacity or brightness and lightness or darkness. All natural and man-made objects around us have colors. Tomatoes, flowers, plants, cars, clothes, etc. They exhibit a variety of colors.
Value: It is the degree of lightness or darkness existing in the color. The value is determined by the amount of light reflected by a surface. The value is also known as pitch.
These elements of artistic creation have their own distinctive characteristics that artists, especially amateurs in the art profession, need to be aware of so that they can mature into creative giants in the art industry.