Covering art's bases - art projects

Arts & Activities, Sept, 2002 by Peter Hiller

After these two steps are completed, a paper cutout with colored paper is undertaken to demonstrate the elements of color, shape and texture. Again, each person re-creates the original image, just in this different manner. The color and shapes match the original and the texture appears from the layered construction paper.

Once all these steps are completed, each part of the project is mounted to a new sheet of paper that is big enough for the, now, four images to fit. The last step is labeling each part of the project, signing them and putting them up for display.

5. UNDER A MICROSCOPE This project begins with a flower for each child, which can be held and closely examined. Over the years we have accumulated a class set of artificial flowers that are always available to use at a moment's notice.

On a single sheet of paper, students draw the flower in its entirety, just as it exists. They then draw three other detailed views of the flower, as if they were seeing it through a microscope under different magnifications. These drawings render the flower abstract and provide an opportunity to examine the elements more clearly.

Often, we finish this project by going over the lines in crayon and doing a watercolor wash for the background in a crayon-resist style. This is a great piece to do when it can be timed to coincide with the science curriculum and studies of botany.

Any way you choose to explore them, the elements of art and principles of design are primary to your students' understanding of art.

ELEMENTS OF ART

The sensory components used to create and talk about works of art are as follows:

COLOR The visual sensation dependent on the reflection or absorption of light from a given surface. The three attributes of color are:

Hue: The characteristic of color that gives it its name. The spectrum is usually divided into six basic hues--violet, blue, green, yellow, orange and red.

Intensity: The degree of color and brightness or dullness of a color.

Value: Lightness and darkness of a hue or neutral color; the gradations of light and dark in a two-dimensional artwork and on the surface of three-dimensional objects.

FORM The particular characteristics of an artwork's visual elements, as distinguished from its subject matter or content, a three-dimensional volume with the same qualities as shape, or the illusion of three dimensions. Attributes of form are:

Mass: Bulk, weight and density of three-dimensional forms, either actual or implied.

Volume: Any three-dimensional quantity that is bound or enclosed, whether solid or void.

LINE A point moving in space. It can vary in width, length and direction.

SHAPE A two-dimensional area or plane that may be open or closed, free-form or geometric, found in nature or made by humans.

SPACE The emptiness or area between, around, above, below or within objects. Shapes and forms are defined by the space around and within them.

TEXTURE The surface quality of materials, either actual (tactile) or implied (visual).

PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN

The controlling, formal organizational concepts in the visual arts are as follows: