(This page of notes, links, and photos is under construction and is regularly edited, corrected and updated. Material is for a course offered as part of North Island College's Metal Jewellery Design Program.)
Visual Examples of the Elements of Art/Design
Point/Line/Plane; Colour; Texture; Shape; Space; Form.
The elements of design are the 'elemental' basic units of any visual object of art or design. Not coincidentally we will be study these design elements, or art elements, while acquiring and rendering skills in our drawing class. I will make every effort to identify drawing skills that are overt design elements during the drawing class.
For a fun intro to the use of simple line in design have a look at the motion graphics in Saul Bass's opening to the movie The Man with the Golden Arm. Click on link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGnpJ_KdqZE
Point/Line/Plane; Colour; Texture; Shape; Space; Form.
The elements of design are the 'elemental' basic units of any visual object of art or design. Not coincidentally we will be study these design elements, or art elements, while acquiring and rendering skills in our drawing class. I will make every effort to identify drawing skills that are overt design elements during the drawing class.
For a fun intro to the use of simple line in design have a look at the motion graphics in Saul Bass's opening to the movie The Man with the Golden Arm. Click on link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGnpJ_KdqZE
Points, Lines and Planes
See below a visual overview of the use of point, line and plane.
1-6 Start with a point. Points can be any size. Two points suggest a line. Many points can merge into a line. Lines can be any size. They can have qualities such as intensity, varying intensity, or texture. Three or more lines make a plane. Or a number of planes. Very quickly a universe of objects burst into existence.
7 A large Russian Constructivist point, or circular form, from the early 20th Century. 8 A point on a plane by in an object by designer Dieter Rams (a speaker). 9-10 Arrangements of line by Kandinsky. 11-12 A large black Constructivist square, or plane, by Malevich and a series of squares in hierarchical order. 12 The monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. 13 Blank paper planes on a gallery wall by Canadian minimalist artist Peter Kolysnik.
14-18 More examples of points, lines and planes in the wonderfully 'simple' design of consumer products by Dieter Rams. 19-20 Two more stills from 2001 by Stanley Kubrick in which points, lines and planes are assembled in space to create a simple but compelling set design.
A focus on planar elements in art might have been initiated by the advent of time lapse photography and the visualization forms with planes moving through space and time. 1 A time lapse photo of a nude descending a staircase. 2 Marcel Duchamp's analytical cubist painting of a Nude Descending a Staircase. It's easy to see how graphic designers can get excited about points and lines particularly; also easy to see how product designers and architects get excited about planar structures like furniture and buildings. 3-4 Furniture designed by Verner Panton.
More examples of design extrapolating from the point/circle. 1 Design for a rug by Verner Patton. 2 Logo by Saul Bass. 3-4 A mandalas extrapolating from the point.
There is so much to learn from design that surrounds us as we move around in the world. Or sit and relax at home. We all watch films on television, and the design of sets for film provides a wonderful canvas for artists to make compelling arrangements. As jewellery designers you could look for design inspiration every time you sit and watch a film. Science fiction particularly offers opportunities to make radical design statements. 5 The bottom of the model of the Aries Ib space craft in 2001: A Space Odyssey is seen from below as a striking mandala. 6 Similar configuration of the space station in Tarkovsky's original Russian version of Solaris. 7 The station in Kubrick's 2001. 8 Simple compelling set design in Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth. 9-10 Two interior sets from the original version of Solaris. 11 Poster for the movie Solaris. 12 Close up of the all-seeing-eye of the HAL computer from 2001. 13 Opening still from Phase 1V, a full length sci-fi feature directed by Saul Bass. 14-15 Stills from the opening of Jonathan Glazer's film Under the Skin which bear a striking resemblance in their graphic simplicity to the opening of Phase IV. 16 Simple design elements arrange themselves in fearful symmetries at the beginning of the Stargate Sequence in 2001.
There is so much to learn from design that surrounds us as we move around in the world. Or sit and relax at home. We all watch films on television, and the design of sets for film provides a wonderful canvas for artists to make compelling arrangements. As jewellery designers you could look for design inspiration every time you sit and watch a film. Science fiction particularly offers opportunities to make radical design statements. 5 The bottom of the model of the Aries Ib space craft in 2001: A Space Odyssey is seen from below as a striking mandala. 6 Similar configuration of the space station in Tarkovsky's original Russian version of Solaris. 7 The station in Kubrick's 2001. 8 Simple compelling set design in Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth. 9-10 Two interior sets from the original version of Solaris. 11 Poster for the movie Solaris. 12 Close up of the all-seeing-eye of the HAL computer from 2001. 13 Opening still from Phase 1V, a full length sci-fi feature directed by Saul Bass. 14-15 Stills from the opening of Jonathan Glazer's film Under the Skin which bear a striking resemblance in their graphic simplicity to the opening of Phase IV. 16 Simple design elements arrange themselves in fearful symmetries at the beginning of the Stargate Sequence in 2001.
If you'd like to watch the opening credits of Under The Skin click the link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySbninr7WCU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySbninr7WCU
Glazer's Under the Skin has been (favorably) compared stylistically to Kubrick's 2001. Film directors, like all artists (including jewellers!), reference the work of other artists, and there can be no doubt that Kubrick has been a strong influence on Glazer. However, here is another link to an interesting film opening; it's to the only feature film that graphic designer Saul Bass ever made, and minus the dialogue the first minute and a half bears a striking resemblance to Under the Skin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTv4WYHsncQ
Colour
1 The colour wheel is a way of arranging the colour spectrum in a logical format. Pure hues are found on the outside of the wheel, and with a large enough wheel every conceivable combination of colours exists within the vast 'grey area' within the perimeter of the wheel. 2 It's worth considering absence of colour and it's extraordinary communicative power. 2-3 Compare the etching of a face and a painting of a face by Lucien Freud. Notice how in both works Freud chooses to light the form from all angles and has increased the contrast in both making darks darker, lights lighter, and colour more intense. In the painting, there are greens in the flesh which are complimentary to the pinks, which possibly creates a bruised mortal look to fair complexions. Notice how, in the etching, the high contrast gives the face a shiny metallic look. As jewellers you will often be considering the lustre of the materials you work with. 4-5 Some film directors choose to make their films in black and white for purely aesthetic or communicative reasons; still from Dr. Strangelove and a still from Wings of Desire. It is sometimes said by painters that value ( ie. a colour de-saturated to a value between black and white) trumps colour. 6 A beautiful watercolour wash painting by American artist Wendy Artin. Artin uses colour exceptionally well, but often chooses to paint without it. 7 A colour sketch of a scene for an animated film. What colour exists is de-saturated and also analogous, that is to say close together on the colour wheel. 8 Artists like BC's well known Toney Onley chose to limit use of pure colour in his paintings and work with a wide variety of greys. If you look at our landscape in any season but summer it's hard to argue with his choice of colour. 9-10 Russian Constructivist paintings by Malevic that add colour to simple point, line, plane arrangements. Notice how more intense hues come forward in the picture plane, whereas colours with a tint of white that has reduced the intensity of the hue drop back. This is partly due to the high key light background, which reduces contrast with the lighter colour tints. When colours are tinted with black or become rich black the come forward in the picture plane, although not as much as the pure hues. (This is in part, however, due to the overlapping of shapes.) 11-16 show examples of how use of colour creates shapes, arrangements, order, hierarchies within a 2D picture frame and include images by Klee, Redon, Dean, Hundervasser and de Kooning. 16-20 As jewellers, you will consciously or unconsciously be considering colour in your choice of stone, choice of metal, or when enamelling.
Shape
Areas in two or three dimensions that are separated from surrounding space by defined or implied boundaries such as lines, differences in value or texture can become shapes. Consider at which point shapes end and form begins. Lots of overlap, form tends to be similar but more 3D in reality or implied by illusion in painting or rendering. 1 2D shapes can be defined by either positive or negative spaces/shapes. Shapes might be described as geometric or organic, or similarly, mechanical or natural. 2-3 Constructivist art and design using simple geometric shapes. 4 Constructivist and geometric looking logo design for CP air and rail by Lippincott and Margulies. 5 Both organic and geometric shape seem to merge in Burton Krame's logo for CBC. 6 Geometric shapes of Piet Mondrian. Mondrian eventually became incurably psychotic in his aversion to any kind of curved organic line. 7 Wallpaper design using organic shapes by sculptor Henry Moore. 8 Organic shaped sculpture by Barbara Hepworth. 9 Geometric art deco detail on The Chrysler Building. 10 Organic shapes by de Kooning. 11 Figurative decoration of pottery from the Geometric period. 12 Organic shapes by Hundervasser. 13 Organic shapes in traditional indigenous art of the North West Coast. 14 Incredible use of shapes from consumer sport products repurposed by Canadian native artist Brian Jungen to create designs that reference indigenous North West Coast art. 15 Shapes arranges to suggest figures in mid 20th Century Western art. 16 More colourful shapes by Hundevasser. 17-19 Computer generated fractals. Fractals are geometrically generated shapes that repeat themselves recursively at both large and small scales. In nature frost on a window forms fractal shapes. Number 19 is a clever fractal creation of Mondrian shapes and colours!
20-24 Some idle speculation on the motif of the mandala/circle or oval in design and art. Besides it's compelling simplicity, it mandalas mimic the human breast or face, which is probably the first thing we focus on as infants. They also mimic the vagina and mouth. 21 shows the graphic design for Lars Von Trier's Nymph()mania movie. 22,23, and 24 show the human mouth as a shape/motif. Painters such as Picasso and Francis Bacon have referenced the image in 23 from Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, as it appears the director of the Dr. Who episode Fury from the Deep might have in the final image.
Areas in two or three dimensions that are separated from surrounding space by defined or implied boundaries such as lines, differences in value or texture can become shapes. Consider at which point shapes end and form begins. Lots of overlap, form tends to be similar but more 3D in reality or implied by illusion in painting or rendering. 1 2D shapes can be defined by either positive or negative spaces/shapes. Shapes might be described as geometric or organic, or similarly, mechanical or natural. 2-3 Constructivist art and design using simple geometric shapes. 4 Constructivist and geometric looking logo design for CP air and rail by Lippincott and Margulies. 5 Both organic and geometric shape seem to merge in Burton Krame's logo for CBC. 6 Geometric shapes of Piet Mondrian. Mondrian eventually became incurably psychotic in his aversion to any kind of curved organic line. 7 Wallpaper design using organic shapes by sculptor Henry Moore. 8 Organic shaped sculpture by Barbara Hepworth. 9 Geometric art deco detail on The Chrysler Building. 10 Organic shapes by de Kooning. 11 Figurative decoration of pottery from the Geometric period. 12 Organic shapes by Hundervasser. 13 Organic shapes in traditional indigenous art of the North West Coast. 14 Incredible use of shapes from consumer sport products repurposed by Canadian native artist Brian Jungen to create designs that reference indigenous North West Coast art. 15 Shapes arranges to suggest figures in mid 20th Century Western art. 16 More colourful shapes by Hundevasser. 17-19 Computer generated fractals. Fractals are geometrically generated shapes that repeat themselves recursively at both large and small scales. In nature frost on a window forms fractal shapes. Number 19 is a clever fractal creation of Mondrian shapes and colours!
20-24 Some idle speculation on the motif of the mandala/circle or oval in design and art. Besides it's compelling simplicity, it mandalas mimic the human breast or face, which is probably the first thing we focus on as infants. They also mimic the vagina and mouth. 21 shows the graphic design for Lars Von Trier's Nymph()mania movie. 22,23, and 24 show the human mouth as a shape/motif. Painters such as Picasso and Francis Bacon have referenced the image in 23 from Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, as it appears the director of the Dr. Who episode Fury from the Deep might have in the final image.
Texture
Tactile texture is three dimensional surface regularity or regularity. On a 3D surface or sculpture you will be able to run your hands over the surface and actually feel the texture. Visual texture is suggested by rendering on a smooth 2D surface and is illusory. If texture is repeated it can become a motif and if motifs are repeated regularly they become a pattern. 1-3 Show various examples of natural textures that you could run your hands over if you were before the real thing. 4 The sculptor Henry Moore uses visual texture by hatching and cross hatching lines (and describes form with contours) in a drawing of an elephant. 5 Moore used the same techniques developed at the London Zoon on drawings of Londoners sheltering in The Tube during the Blitz in WW2. 6 Texture was key component of the album covers of the Scottish shoegazer/acid pop band The Cocteau Twins. 7 Repeated textures or shapes become motifs and then patterns. 8 A viscosity print derived from broken glass exhibits use of textures resulting from the layer of colours in etched surfaces. It should be obvious that texture will be a significant factor in your jewellery design and fabrication.
Tactile texture is three dimensional surface regularity or regularity. On a 3D surface or sculpture you will be able to run your hands over the surface and actually feel the texture. Visual texture is suggested by rendering on a smooth 2D surface and is illusory. If texture is repeated it can become a motif and if motifs are repeated regularly they become a pattern. 1-3 Show various examples of natural textures that you could run your hands over if you were before the real thing. 4 The sculptor Henry Moore uses visual texture by hatching and cross hatching lines (and describes form with contours) in a drawing of an elephant. 5 Moore used the same techniques developed at the London Zoon on drawings of Londoners sheltering in The Tube during the Blitz in WW2. 6 Texture was key component of the album covers of the Scottish shoegazer/acid pop band The Cocteau Twins. 7 Repeated textures or shapes become motifs and then patterns. 8 A viscosity print derived from broken glass exhibits use of textures resulting from the layer of colours in etched surfaces. It should be obvious that texture will be a significant factor in your jewellery design and fabrication.
Space
1 Two dimensional shapes can generate the perception of positive and negative two dimensional space and exist in an illusory space by various means. 2 In this Constructivist arrangement of shapes overlap and a hierarchical arrangement helps create the illusion of space. is Three dimensional objects exist in space. 3-4 Concave and convex form on a plane in SketchUp. 5 A concave space is created in a work of jewellery. 6 An object is placed in negative interior space on a piece of jewellery. 7 Positive and negative space on ceramics. 8 Brutalist (concrete) Architecture invades empty surrounding space. 9-10 When drawing an object we will often 'work within the box'; essentially establish the point of view, the perspective, and the boundaries of the object by first constructing a space containing module such as a box.
11-12 We often extend 'construction lines' into surrounding space when drawing an object. These lines can also be conceived of as planes, and are a clue to the possible genesis of Analytical Cubism in which an object and it's surrounding space become one unified field. 13-14 If we look at an earlier blue Picasso painting of a man with a guitar we can see how the artist is experimenting with use of illusionary space; in the blue painting we can see that he employs a flattening effect. But more than that, he is experimenting with more than one point of view; this is especially evident in the head and the slightly different point of view of body parts gives the figure a look of being twisted and pinned on the picture plane. Compare to the later Analytical Cubist painting; planes extend into space and there is a widespread fragmentation of a single point of view into many. 15 Even when Cubism was less formal, Picasso continued to experiment with various points of view in a representational image, as in this portrait. Note the eyes. 16 In Constantine Brancusi's Bird in Space sculpture, we no longer know what is bird and what is space, but this is irrelevant in the face of the compelling abstract form. 17 Linear Perspective helps to suggest illusionary space.
18 Shading on objects helps give them form and allows them to inhabit an illusionary space. 19 Highlights, transitional lighting (gradation between light and dark), shadow core, reflected light and cast shadow also help objects, both real and illusionary, to have volume and be placed in space. 20 Aerial Perspective is a naturally occurring phenomenon that can be exaggerated to help make objects recede into the space of the picture plane. Look closely at the photograph and you will clearly see how it works; as you recede into the distance lights get darker and darks get lighter.
1 Two dimensional shapes can generate the perception of positive and negative two dimensional space and exist in an illusory space by various means. 2 In this Constructivist arrangement of shapes overlap and a hierarchical arrangement helps create the illusion of space. is Three dimensional objects exist in space. 3-4 Concave and convex form on a plane in SketchUp. 5 A concave space is created in a work of jewellery. 6 An object is placed in negative interior space on a piece of jewellery. 7 Positive and negative space on ceramics. 8 Brutalist (concrete) Architecture invades empty surrounding space. 9-10 When drawing an object we will often 'work within the box'; essentially establish the point of view, the perspective, and the boundaries of the object by first constructing a space containing module such as a box.
11-12 We often extend 'construction lines' into surrounding space when drawing an object. These lines can also be conceived of as planes, and are a clue to the possible genesis of Analytical Cubism in which an object and it's surrounding space become one unified field. 13-14 If we look at an earlier blue Picasso painting of a man with a guitar we can see how the artist is experimenting with use of illusionary space; in the blue painting we can see that he employs a flattening effect. But more than that, he is experimenting with more than one point of view; this is especially evident in the head and the slightly different point of view of body parts gives the figure a look of being twisted and pinned on the picture plane. Compare to the later Analytical Cubist painting; planes extend into space and there is a widespread fragmentation of a single point of view into many. 15 Even when Cubism was less formal, Picasso continued to experiment with various points of view in a representational image, as in this portrait. Note the eyes. 16 In Constantine Brancusi's Bird in Space sculpture, we no longer know what is bird and what is space, but this is irrelevant in the face of the compelling abstract form. 17 Linear Perspective helps to suggest illusionary space.
18 Shading on objects helps give them form and allows them to inhabit an illusionary space. 19 Highlights, transitional lighting (gradation between light and dark), shadow core, reflected light and cast shadow also help objects, both real and illusionary, to have volume and be placed in space. 20 Aerial Perspective is a naturally occurring phenomenon that can be exaggerated to help make objects recede into the space of the picture plane. Look closely at the photograph and you will clearly see how it works; as you recede into the distance lights get darker and darks get lighter.
Form
1 All 3D objects are forms, and have height, width, and depth. 2 Form can be described by light and shadow on it's surface, whether actual, or 3D or illusory illustrated objects like this Lauren Harris painting. 3-4 Two recognizable forms in the landscape; stacked stones or cairns, and the more elaborate Inuksuk used by Inuit peoples. 5-6 A convex form created in SketchUp, and a convex form created in the first fraction of a second of the Trinity nuclear explosion. 7 A cairn at ground zero of the Trinity nuclear explosion. 8 Nature can be a library of forms for study by artists; these are rock formations on Hornby Island. 9 A natural form, an erected log, on the beach at Tribune Bay on Hornby Island. 10 Sculptor Henry Moore studied nature extensively for his Biomorphic forms. Compare his sculpture to the erect log. 11-12 Like shapes, forms can be organic or geometric. Consider the grey area where shape becomes form. Lots of overlap. Image 11 is from Francis Bacon's Three Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. The figures can be seen as almost abstract organic forms, much like those in de Koonings painting beside them. 13 Geometric forms in SketchUp. 14 Line can describe form as compellingly as light and shade. 15-16 Beautiful simple forms used in jewellery design. Notice how the choice of reflective metal has helped to describe the form in a way as interesting as light and shade or contour.
1 All 3D objects are forms, and have height, width, and depth. 2 Form can be described by light and shadow on it's surface, whether actual, or 3D or illusory illustrated objects like this Lauren Harris painting. 3-4 Two recognizable forms in the landscape; stacked stones or cairns, and the more elaborate Inuksuk used by Inuit peoples. 5-6 A convex form created in SketchUp, and a convex form created in the first fraction of a second of the Trinity nuclear explosion. 7 A cairn at ground zero of the Trinity nuclear explosion. 8 Nature can be a library of forms for study by artists; these are rock formations on Hornby Island. 9 A natural form, an erected log, on the beach at Tribune Bay on Hornby Island. 10 Sculptor Henry Moore studied nature extensively for his Biomorphic forms. Compare his sculpture to the erect log. 11-12 Like shapes, forms can be organic or geometric. Consider the grey area where shape becomes form. Lots of overlap. Image 11 is from Francis Bacon's Three Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. The figures can be seen as almost abstract organic forms, much like those in de Koonings painting beside them. 13 Geometric forms in SketchUp. 14 Line can describe form as compellingly as light and shade. 15-16 Beautiful simple forms used in jewellery design. Notice how the choice of reflective metal has helped to describe the form in a way as interesting as light and shade or contour.