Helloooooo! I’m back again today talking about the elements and principles of art and design, which are the foundation of art. The reason I want to share these ideas with you is to take a bit of the mystery out of art, because as I said before, art is here for your enjoyment and if you understand the inner workings of it you might find you get more out of it. A few posts back you’ll see I talked about the first element, LINE ____________________
Feel free to check that one out if you missed it. And now we are going to explore what SHAPE is all about.
So when you think of shape, you want to think FLAT. Shape is 2-dimensional and has no form. Think circle VS sphere, square VS cube, triangle VS pyramid. And shapes can be any size and, um…. shape! 😆 They don’t have to be your traditional ‘shapes’ that have names like I just listed, they can be wacky and weird shapes that don’t look like anything recognizable. The shape I made above ☝ is abstract, it’s basically two ovals put together. But our brains can’t help but see things, and so it ends up looking like the silhouette of a person.
So that’s pretty much it for shape. Next time I am going to touch on FORM. But in the mean time, see if you can find interesting shapes when you are moving through your day, snapping photos, or sitting down to draw or create something. Shapes are all around, in shadows, road signs, or the frost on your car window in the morning before it warms up.
Also, you can check out Henri Matisse 🎨 and his work during his ‘Cut Out’ phase. He made many of these works by cutting out large shapes from coloured paper. Pieces like ‘Icarus’, ‘Blue Nude’ and ‘La Gerbe’ are cool examples of his use of shape.
XO Heidi
