Elements of composition

Elements of Composition: Elements are the basic building blocks or fundamental components that artists use to create their artworks. These elements include line, shape, form, space, color, value, texture, and more. Elements are tangible and concrete aspects of the artwork that can be identified and manipulated. Artists use these elements to convey their ideas, express emotions, and communicate with their audience. Elements provide the raw materials from which compositions are constructed.

• Line
• Shape
• Value
• Space
• Texture
• Color

Line: a mark left by a dot or point moving over a surface. It is often an outline or contour, showing the edge of an object, or figure. They can be horizontal, vertical, diagonal, long, short, straight, curved, thick, thin, solid, dashed, blurred, uneven, sharp-edged and can create patterns. Line can be direct, implied or psychic.

7 primary functions of line

1. to convey it’s own intrinsic beauty
2. to limit or divide an area or space
3. to delineate an idea or a symbol
4. to define form by edge or contour
5. to catch and direct the eye over a given course
6. to produce a gray or tonal gradation
7. to create design or arrangement 

Shape: are created when lines are combined to form a square, triangle, or circle. Shapes can be organic (irregular shapes found in nature) or geometric (shapes with strong lines and angles such as circles, triangles, and squares).

Value: is the degree of light and dark in a design. It is the contrast between black and white and all the tones in between. Value can be used with color as well as black and white. Contrast is the extreme changes between values.

Space: the area between and around objects. Increasing or decreasing the amount of space around an object affects the way we view that object.

Texture: is the surface quality that can be seen and felt. Textures can be rough or smooth, soft or hard. Textures are often implied. For instance, a drawing of a rock might appear to have a rough and hard surface, but in reality is as smooth as the paper on which it is drawn.

Color: is the phenomenon of light which creates the visible spectrum helping us to distinguish one form from another. Color has hue, value, saturation (intensity).