The Fundamentals of Art

A famous artist/designer once said, "To reject the basics, you must first master them."

The object of this class will be to introduce the basics of art and design, so that we, as artists, have a better grasp of how we can create art that reaches our viewers.

We will discuss ideas as to how we can be more creative. Understand the Golden Section or the Divine Proportion as it applies to the design of your painting. We will look at works by the Masters as examples of how this rule can aid us in building our paintings. We will work to execute basic quick sketches utilizing this principle, both in color and black and white.

We will discuss the elements of art - the ingredients if you will. But as with cooking, just because you may have the finest ingredients, if you don't have a great recipe you don't necessarily have a great meal. The recipe is the principles of art. But first will look at the elements (ingredients): line, shape and form, value, space, color, and texture. We will examine each of the elements and practice producing examples of each.

We will also look at some main principles of art. These principles typically deal with the composition of your art. The eight principles of art are balance, proportion, unity, harmony, variety, emphasis, rhythm, and movement. All of these principles clearly deal with the placement of elements within artwork. We will look at each of these principles in depth and apply them to quick renderings that will allow us to build a comfortable relationship with each of them.

As we look at all of these elements and principles we will see examples of works by other artists to give us a better appreciation of the fundamental art concepts. These images should help us to grasp how each element and principle comes together and creates!

Finally we will look at various mediums and how they can be use, by the workshop attendee to create the kind of art they want to do.