Crafts: Media and Forms In primitive cultures, people had-crafted objects for the daily activities of cooking, carrying, and storing; for personal adornment; and for seeking the favor of their gods or some supernatural forces. In trash heaps and digs around the world, archaeologists have uncovered pots, baskets, tools, utensils, ornaments, idols, weapons, and decorative objects. Since these humble beginnings, crafts have become more decorative, carefully designed, and durable. The sophistication of these crafts has been a valuable aid in determining the cultural advancement of a particular society. First and most important to the craftsperson is the usefulness of an object and its functional design (Form follows Function).
Crafts: Media and Forms • Clay : Before humans learned to weave cloth, they wore animal skins and made objects of clay. Clays of various types are dug from the earth, and when formed, dried, and fired become extremely durable. • Fibers : The early processes of weaving and twining resulted from a need for containers, clothing, and protective coverings for walls and floors. Materials were available to twist, knot, twine, and loop into forms that helped meet the basic needs. At a later time, weaving was developed — the process of making textiles on some type of loom. • Glass : Glass is such a common item today that it’s difficult to think of it as a precious metal. Yet the Egyptians used glass and precious gems in jewelry, and it was an important part of King Tutankhamen’s burial mask.
Greek Vases
Chinese Ming Vase
King Tuts Funeral Mask
Tlingit Indian Tribe Southern Alaska
Tlingit Blanket
Joan Miro Tapestry
Egyptian Glass
Hand-Blown Glass
Italian Hand-Blown Glass
Mold-Made Glass
Crafts: Media and Forms • Jewelry : Millions of pieces of jewelry have been made by excellent craftspersons around the world---in nomadic societies, wealthy families invested in jewelry and other portable items. Noblemen and rulers in later years acquired great wealth, their collections of jewelry until fine jewelry, gems, and wealth became synonymous. Simple jewelry, on the other hand, can be made of any material that enhances personal appearance---string, seeds, or basic metals like copper. It satisfied the need for personal adornment in primitive societies. • Mosaics : Mosaics can be made of glass (Byzantine and Venetian glass), stone (various colored marble bits), bits of ceramic tile, pieces of wood, or even seeds and paper.
16 th Century Jewelry
17 th Century Jewelry
Crown Jewels of Britain
Crafts: Media and Forms • Furniture : Like glass, furniture is taken for granted. Craftspersons working with wood have produced such astounding results that they often signed their pieces as painters and sculptors do. Contemporary craftpersons are working with metal, glass, plastics, leather, fibers, and wood to create furniture for offices, homes, and public spaces, using modern production methods and finishing techniques. • Metalwork : Craftspersons working with metals have been producing work for their societies ever since bronze could be worked. As with other crafts, the competence of the craftspersons provides a good indication as to the sophistication of the society and its level of technology. Working in gold, silver, copper, bronze, iron, steel, and aluminum, artisans have created their metal magic for years.
Quaker Furniture
Shaker Blanket Chest
Louis XIV Furniture
Louis XIV Chair
Sterling Silver Sconce
Bronze Vessel
Gold Candelabra
Crafts: Media and Forms Most crafts were made to be useful and not simply to look at and enjoy. Some, however, are of such high quality that their aesthetic value outweighs their usefulness---and they must be called art.
Design A lot of artists have produced excellent work that seems well planned and carefully designed, yet they might not have had any formal training. Most artists and craftsmen have an innate sense of design so that when they work on a painting, sculpture, or ceramic piece, they intuitively know what is right and comfortable. After centuries of looking at paintings, sculptures, crafts, and buildings, art historians and theoreticians have discovered that certain aspects of good art are repeated. This is called DESIGN!
Design Design is really the structure of art---the grammar of visual language. Just as verbal language needs structure to make it understandable and effective (random words strung together are confusing), visual language needs structure to make it comprehensible. The elements of design are the vocabulary with which artists work; the principles of design are the grammar, suggesting how these elements can be used most effectively. These features are rarely used in isolation. Artists usually use all the elements and principles in concert to produce an effective visual statement.
The Elements of Design The elements of design are everywhere, not just as paintings or sculptures. Line s are seen everyday. They can be two-dimensional like those on a sheet of writing paper or three-dimensional like the branches of tree or the cracks in a rock. If a line on paper wanders around and finally crosses itself, the enclosed area is called a shape . Shapes have two dimensions. They can be geometric or organic. A form is three-dimensional and encloses volume. Like shapes, forms can be geometric, irregular, or free form. Value refers to the light or dark quality of a color or shape in a painting. Black is the darkest value; white is the lightest. When a basic red color is mixed with white, its value is lightened; if black is added, its value is darkened. The surfaces of things have texture . Sandpaper, wool, cloth, leather, and asphalt have texture. A painting may simulate textures by using color and value contrasts. Space is where people live. The volume of air around us is negative space (space not occupied by solid forms). But space also refers to the illusion of depth in a painting or drawing. Real space is three-dimensional while space in a painting is two-dimensional.
Design: Line Line : An element of design that may be two-dimensional (pencil or paper), three- dimensional (wire), or implied (the edge of a shape or form). Lines can be horizontal, vertical, dotted, bold, or fine. Lines can show direction, lead the eye, outline an object, divide a space, and communicate a feeling or emotion.
Design: Shape A shape is an element of art. Specifically, it is an enclosed space , the boundaries of which are defined by other elements of art (i.e.: lines, colors, values, textures, etc.). Shapes are limited to two dimensions: length and width. Geometric shapes - circles, rectangles, squares, triangles and so on - have the clear edges one achieves when using tools to create such shapes. Organic shapes have natural, less well-defined edges (think: an amoeba, or a cloud).
Design: Form Form, the volume of mass objects have, is the most important art element for sculptors. • Form is an element of art. At its most basic, a form is a three-dimensional geometrical figure (i.e.: sphere, cube, cylinder, cone, etc.), as opposed to a shape , which is two-dimensional, or flat .
Legos
Wood
Marble
Paper
Design: Texture Texture , another element of art, is used to describe either the way a three-dimensional work actually feels when touched, or the visual "feel" of a two-dimensional work. Take rocks, for example. A real, 3-D rock might feel rough or smooth, and definitely feels hard when touched or picked up. A painter, depicting a rock, would create the illusions of these qualities through use of color, line, shape, etc.
Design: Space Over the years artists have devised ways of showing depth or space in a painting — a process called perspective. When two objects overlap on a flat surface, and one is clearly behind and the other is in the front, a sense of depth is created. Painters, drawers, and other 2-D artists also use atmospheric perspective ( The effect produced by diffusion of light in the atmosphere whereby more distant objects have less clarity of outline and are lighter in tone ) to show depth. The darker values are up close and the lighter values are far away; the colors also are more intense up close while the edges become softer farther away.
Figure Ground Reversal
One point Perspecitve
One-Point Perspective
Two-Point Perspective
Three Point Perspective
Atmospheric Perspective
Foreground and Background
Design: Color Color is the one phase of art that is also a science. There are three terms that artists use in talking about color: hue, value, and intensity. Hue is the name of the color — yellow is a hue. Value is dark or light quality of a color — pink is light value of red because white has been added to it. Intensity is the brightness or saturation of a color — the pure color is the most intense; if one adds the compliment and grays it, it is less intense.
Ray of Light Prism The Spectrum
Complimentary Colors
Design: Value Value is the relative lightness or darkness of an object. The position of an object in relation to the light source has an impact of the relative value gradations . A gradation is a gradual change of color or shade such as from light to dark. An example of a gradation can be seen in a Grey Scale. Artwork that have mostly light values are called high-keyed and those of mostly dark values, low-keyed.
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