Elements & Principles of Art
These seven building blocks include line, shape, form, color, value, space, and texture.
What are the elements of art?
These colors cannot be mixed from any others.
What are primary colors?
A drawing made by carefully observing a subject.
What is observational drawing?
The ordered arrangement of elements in an artwork.
What is composition?
The lightness or darkness of a color.
What is value?
This principle refers to the distribution of visual weight in a composition.
What is balance?
A color scheme using variations of one color.
What is monochromatic?
A drawing technique using intersecting lines for shading.
What is cross‑hatching?
This guideline divides an image into nine equal parts to create strong focal points.
What is the rule of thirds?
A color made by mixing a primary and a secondary color.
What is a tertiary color?
This principle creates harmony and cohesiveness among all parts of an artwork.
What is unity?
Colors next to each other on the color wheel.
What are analogous colors?
A shading technique using small dots.
What is stippling?
The relationship in size between different parts of a composition.
What is proportion?
The difference between hue and value.
Hue is the color; value is its lightness or darkness.
This principle guides the viewer’s eye through a piece of art.
What is movement?
A color scheme using three evenly spaced colors on the color wheel.
What are triadic colors?
A technique where the artist draws the outline while not looking at the paper.
What is blind contour drawing?
The arrangement of light and dark areas in a work of art.
What is a value pattern?
The area around, between, and within objects in an artwork.
What is space?
This principle highlights differences between elements to create visual interest.
What is contrast?
A color scheme using a base color and the two colors beside its opposite.
What are split complementary colors?
A loose, irregular application of color to create texture.
What is scumbling?
This technique creates depth by reducing contrast and saturation in distant objects.
What is atmospheric perspective?
This framework explains how colors interact and how to combine them effectively.
What is color theory?