Elements of Visual Art

Every art discipline has elements of the art form.  These creative building blocks are essential and having a grasp on how they work is important both for creating and responding to art. By gaining a deeper understanding of the elements of art, it’s easier to analyze, unravel, and create any type of artwork from painting and photography to sculpture and architecture.  We train teachers in a variety of approaches to teaching these elements

Sketchnoting

Having students draw their understanding of concepts engages higher order thinking and creativity.  This video is an introduction to sketchnoting and below is a possible script to read as students draw their understandings.  

Cube Project

The Cube Project is a cube template (to be copied onto card stock) in which students illustrate the six elements of visual art (line, shape, color, texture, space, value) and the seventh element, form, is the cube itself. 

ABCs of Art

This printable packet contains a wealth of activities for learning the elements of visual art and the principles of design.  
This is the small poster we provided teachers which was influenced by this video.  

Online Resources

Several sites have good resources for learning the elements.  Here are a few of them.  The Fresno packet are note-taking activities.  The e-book is by KQED and the Wondertime site is a collection of artworks and English/Spanish explanations of how the elements can be seen in each artwork.

Videos

There are several videos on the elements of visual art.  The "Summer video" was shown during the 2019 Summer institute.  The others were created by KQED.

Principles of Design (Art)

If the elements of visual art were bricks and mortar, the principles would be HOW those masonry supplies are used to make a wall,  a fireplace, or a walkway.  The principles of design (or art) are how the artist uses or organizes the elements within the work of art.  

Video

This is created by the same team that made the Elements Video.

Poster

Another mini-poster for you to use.

Printable

A collection of artworks which demonstrate each of the principles.