Contour Drawing

Contour drawing, is an artistic technique used in the field of art in which the artist sketches the contour of a subject by drawing lines that result in a drawing that is essentially an outline; the French word contour meaning, “outline.” The purpose of contour drawing is to emphasize the mass and volume of the subject rather than the detail; the focus is on the outlined shape of the subject and not the minor details. However, because contour can convey a three-dimensional perspective, length and width as well as thickness and depth are important; not all contours exist along the outlines of a subject. This technique is manifested in different styles and practiced in drawing development and learning. Contour drawing is an essential technique in the field of art because it is a strong foundation for any drawing or painting; it can potentially modify a subjects’ form through variation within…

Automatic Drawing and Painting

Automatic Drawing (distinguished from drawn expression of mediums) was developed by the surrealists, as a means of expressing the subconscious. In automatic drawing, the hand is allowed to move ‘randomly’ across the paper. In applying chance and accident to mark-making, drawing is to a large extent freed of rational control. Hence the drawing produced may be attributed in part to the subconscious and may reveal something of the psyche, which would otherwise be repressed. Examples of automatic drawing were produced by mediums and practitioners of the psychic arts. It was thought by some Spiritualists to be a spirit control that was producing the drawing while physically taking control of the medium’s body. Automatic drawing was pioneered by André Masson but artists who also practised automatic drawing around the same time include the English artist Austin Osman Spare and in France Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, Jean Arp and André Breton. The…

Concept Art

Concept art is a form of illustration used to convey an idea for use in films, video games, animation, comic books, or other media before it is put into the final product. Concept art usually refers to world-building artwork used inspired the development of media products, and is not the same visual development art or concept design, though all three are often confused. Art Concept also refers to graphic and / or concept development. This term can also be applied to industrial design. Concept art is developed in several iterations. Artists test different designs to achieve the desired result at the beginning of the work, or sometimes look for a result that detonates. Drawings are filtered and refined to reduce the number of options. The artistic concept is not only used to advance the tasks, it is also used as a rendering to show the progress of the project to…

Stick Figure

A stick figure is a very simple drawing of a person or animal, composed of a few lines, curves, and dots. In a stick figure, the head is represented by a circle, sometimes embellished with details such as eyes, mouth or crudely scratched-out hair. The arms, legs and torso are usually represented by straight lines. Details such as hands, feet and a neck may be present or absent, and the simpler stick figures often display an ambiguous emotional expression or disproportionate limbs. Graffiti of stick figures are found throughout history, often scratched with a sharp object on hard surfaces such as stone or concrete walls. Stick figures are often used in sketches for film storyboarding. The stick figure’s earliest roots are in prehistoric art. Tens of thousands of years later, writing systems that use images for words or morphemes—e.g. logographies such as Egyptian and Chinese—started simplifying people and other objects…

Doodle

A doodle is a drawing made while a person’s attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be composed of random and abstract lines, generally without ever lifting the drawing device from the paper, in which case it is usually called a “scribble”. Popular Doodle types include cartoonists or schoolmates, famous movie or TV stars, comic book characters, invented fictional beings, imaginary beings, landscapes, geometric shapes, and patterns, textures, phallic scenes, or animations by drawing a sequence of scenes in different pages of a book or a notebook. Doodling and scribbling are most often associated with young children and toddlers, because their lack of hand–eye coordination and lower mental development often make it very difficult for any young child to keep their coloring attempts within the line art of the subject. Despite this, it is not uncommon to see such behaviour…

Study in art

In art, a study is a drawing, sketch or painting done in preparation for a finished piece, or as visual notes. Studies are often used to understand the problems involved in rendering subjects and to plan the elements to be used in finished works, such as light, color, form, perspective and composition. Studies can have more impact than more-elaborately planned work, due to the fresh insights the artist gains while exploring the subject. The excitement of discovery can give a study vitality. Even when layers of the work show changes the artist made as more was understood, the viewer shares more of the artist’s sense of discovery. Written notes alongside visual images add to the import of the piece as they allow the viewer to share the artist’s process of getting to know the subject. Studies inspired some of the first 20th century conceptual art, where the creative process itself…

Croquis

Croquis drawing is quick and sketchy drawing of a live model. Croquis drawings are usually made in a few minutes, after which the model changes pose or leaves and another croquis is drawn. The short duration of the pose benefits models because they do not need to keep still for a long time; this also benefits the artists because it helps them concentrate on the essential elements of the pose, or the most important parts of the drawing. An artist does not have time to draw all the details, so they learn to concentrate on the important elements. Croquis is also a good method of drawing subjects that generally do not stand still and pose, such as insects, animals, and children. A sketch is a drawing made quickly, by show of hands, without seeking details in order to clear the main features of the subject, the pattern; often made from…

Courtroom Sketch

A courtroom sketch is an artistic depiction of the proceedings in a court of law. In many jurisdictions, cameras are not allowed in courtrooms in order to prevent distractions and preserve privacy. This requires news media to rely on sketch artists for illustrations of the proceedings. Courtroom sketch artists attend judicial proceedings as members of the public or as credentialed media depending on the venue and jurisdiction. Judges may require or allow artists to sit in a designated area or they may sit in general public seating. In some jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, courtroom artists are not permitted to sketch proceedings while in court and must create sketches from memory or notes after leaving the courtroom. Courtroom artists can quickly capture a moment on paper and then sell their work to media outlets who would otherwise be denied a visual record of the trial. They may…

Sketch Drawing

A sketch (drawing) is a rapidly executed freehand drawing that is not usually intended as a finished work. A sketch may serve a number of purposes: it might record something that the artist sees, it might record or develop an idea for later use or it might be used as a quick way of graphically demonstrating an image, idea or principle. A sketch is the first draft of a drawn work, prior to a later work, for example. The sketch is part of the preparatory phase of research for a work to be painted. It is often after the sketch taken on the spot and can precede a drawing of the most complete or definitive type that will serve as a basis of work for the painter. It differs from the sketch which is a drawing in itself, realized quickly as a “note-taking” or exercise, while the sketch calls a…

Silverpoint

Silverpoint (one of several types of metalpoint) is a traditional drawing technique first used by medieval scribes on manuscripts. A silverpoint drawing is made by dragging a silver rod or wire across a surface, often prepared with gesso or primer. Silverpoint is one of several types of metalpoint used by scribes, craftsmen and artists since ancient times. Metalpoint styli were used for writing on soft surfaces (wax or bark), ruling and underdrawing on parchment, and drawing on prepared paper and panel supports. For drawing purposes, the essential metals used were lead, tin and silver. The softness of these metals made them effective drawing instruments. (Watrous, 1957) Goldsmiths also used metalpoint drawings to prepare their detailed, meticulous designs. Albrecht Dürer’s father was one such craftsman who later taught his young son to draw in metalpoint, to such good effect that his 1484 self-portrait at age 13 is still considered a masterpiece.…

Silhouette

A silhouette is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single color, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the whole is typically presented on a light background, usually white, or none at all. The silhouette differs from an outline, which depicts the edge of an object in a linear form, while a silhouette appears as a solid shape. Silhouette images may be created in any visual artistic media, but were first used to describe pieces of cut paper, which were then stuck to a backing in a contrasting colour, and often framed. Cutting portraits, generally in profile, from black card became popular in the mid-18th century, though the term silhouette was seldom used until the early decades of the 19th century, and the tradition has continued under this…

Portrait

A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer. Profile view, full face view, and three-quarter view, are three common designations for portraits, each referring to a particular orientation of the head of the individual depicted. Such terms would tend to have greater applicability to two-dimensional artwork such as photography and painting than to three-dimensional artwork such as sculpture. In the case of three-dimensional artwork, the viewer can usually alter their orientation to the…

Line art

Line art or line drawing is any image that consists of distinct straight or curved lines placed against a (usually plain) background, without gradations in shade (darkness) or hue (color) to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects. Line art can use lines of different colors, although line art is usually monochromatic. Line art emphasizes form and outline, over color, shading, and texture. However, areas of solid pigment and dots can also be used in addition to lines. The lines in a piece of line art may be all of a constant width (as in some pencil drawings), of several (few) constant widths (as in technical illustrations), or of freely varying widths (as in brush work or engraving). One of the most fundamental elements of art is the line. An important feature of a line is that it indicates the edge of a two-dimensional (flat) shape or a three-dimensional form. A shape…

Gesture Drawing

A gesture drawing is a laying in of the action, form, and pose of a model/figure. Typical situations involve an artist drawing a series of poses taken by a model in a short amount of time, often as little as 10 seconds, or as long as 5 minutes. Gesture drawing is often performed as a warm-up for a life drawing session, but is a skill that must be cultivated for its own sake. In less typical cases the artist may be observing people or animals going about normal activities with no special effort to pause for the artist. For example, drawing from people on the street, performers, athletes, or drawing animals at the zoo. The primary purpose of gesture drawing is to facilitate the study of the human figure in motion. This exploration of action is helpful for the artist to better understand the exertions of muscles, the effects of…

Figure Drawing

A figure drawing is a drawing of the human form in any of its various shapes and postures using any of the drawing media. The term can also refer to the act of producing such a drawing. The degree of representation may range from highly detailed, anatomically correct renderings to loose and expressive sketches. A “life drawing” is a drawing of the human figure from observation of a live model. A figure drawing may be a composed work of art or a figure study done in preparation for a more finished work such as a painting. Figure drawing is arguably the most difficult subject an artist commonly encounters, and entire courses are dedicated to the subject. The human figure is one of the most enduring themes in the visual arts, and the human figure can be the basis of portraiture, illustration, sculpture, medical illustration, and other fields. Artists take a…

Fashion Illustration

Fashion Illustration is the art of communicating fashion ideas in a visual form that originates with illustration, drawing and painting and also known as Fashion sketching. It is used mainly by fashion designers to brainstorm their ideas into paper or computer, using digital software like adobe photoshop and illustrator, which helps them to communicate easily with their team. and fashion sketching plays a major role in designing to preview and visualize designer thoughts and make decisions before going to actual clothing to reduce any wastage. Apart from fashion designers, fashion illustrators get commissioned for reproduction in fashion magazines as one part of an editorial feature or for the purpose of advertising and promoting fashion makers, fashion boutiques and department stores. Fashion illustration is an artistic activity consisting of drawing design for fashion clothes intended for publication, for example in a fashion magazine or poster. Appeared at the beginning of the…

Caricature

A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or through other artistic drawings. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others. Beside the political and public-figure satire, most contemporary caricatures are used as gifts or souvenirs, often drawn by street vendors. For a small fee, a caricature can be drawn specifically (and quickly) for a patron. These are popular at street fairs, carnivals, and even weddings, often with humorous results. Caricature artists are also popular attractions at many places frequented by tourists, especially oceanfront boardwalks, where vacationers can have a humorous caricature sketched in a few minutes for a small fee. Caricature artists sometimes hire for parties, where they will draw caricatures of the guests for their entertainment. Caricatures can be insulting or complimentary and…

Illustration

An illustration is a decoration, interpretation or visual explanation of a text, concept or process, designed for integration in published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, video games and films. Depending on the purpose, illustration may be expressive, stylised, realistic or highly technical. Technical and scientific illustration communicates information of a technical or scientific nature. This may include exploded views, cutaways, fly-throughs, reconstructions, instructional images, component designs, diagrams. The aim is “to generate expressive images that effectively convey certain information via the visual channel to the human observer. Technical and scientific illustration is generally designed to describe or explain subjects to a nontechnical audience, so must provide “an overall impression of what an object is or does, to enhance the viewer’s interest and understanding”. In contemporary illustration practice, 2D and 3D software is often used to create accurate representations that can be updated easily, and reused…

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art in which a person uses various drawing instruments to mark paper or another two-dimensional medium. Instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, various kinds of erasers, markers, styluses, various metals (such as silverpoint) and electronic drawing. A drawing instrument releases a small amount of material onto a surface, leaving a visible mark. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials, such as cardboard, plastic, leather, canvas, and board, may be used. Temporary drawings may be made on a blackboard or whiteboard or indeed almost anything. The medium has been a popular and fundamental means of public expression throughout human history. It is one of the simplest and most efficient means of communicating visual ideas. The wide availability of drawing instruments makes drawing one of the most common artistic activities. In addition…

Artwork

A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an aesthetic physical item or artistic creation. Apart from “work of art”, which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature and music, these terms apply principally to tangible, portable forms of visual art: This article is concerned with the terms and concept as used in and applied to the visual arts, although other fields such as aural-music and written word-literature have similar issues and philosophies. The term objet d’art is reserved to describe works of art that are not paintings, prints, drawings or large or medium-sized sculptures, or architecture (e.g. household goods, figurines, etc., some purely aesthetic, some also practical). The term oeuvre is used to describe the complete body of work completed by an artist throughout a career. An example of fine art, such as…

Visual Arts

The visual arts are art forms such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, photography, video, filmmaking, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines (performing arts, conceptual art, textile arts) involve aspects of the visual arts as well as arts of other types. Also included within the visual arts are the applied arts such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design and decorative art. Current usage of the term “visual arts” includes fine art as well as the applied, decorative arts and crafts, but this was not always the case. Before the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and elsewhere at the turn of the 20th century, the term ‘artist’ was often restricted to a person working in the fine arts (such as painting, sculpture, or printmaking) and not the handicraft, craft, or applied art media. The distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement, who…

Light and Space

Light and Space denotes a loosely affiliated art movement related to op art, minimalism and geometric abstraction originating in Southern California in the 1960s and influenced by John McLaughlin. It was characterized by a focus on perceptual phenomena, such as light, volume and scale, and the use of materials such as glass, neon, fluorescent lights, resin and cast acrylic, often forming installations conditioned by the work’s surroundings. Whether by directing the flow of natural light, embedding artificial light within objects or architecture, or by playing with light through the use of transparent, translucent or reflective materials, Light and Space artists made the spectator’s experience of light and other sensory phenomena under specific conditions the focus of their work. They were incorporating into their work the latest technologies of the Southern California-based engineering and aerospace industries to their develop sensuous, light-filled objects. Turrell, who has spread the movement worldwide, summed up…

Keum-boo attached gold

Keum-boo (金鈇) is an ancient Korean gilding technique used to apply thin sheets of gold to silver, to make silver-gilt. Keum-boo refers to a technique that applies moderate heat to gold and silver (about 500-700F Fahrenheit) to make it permanently attached by rubbing the surface with a very clean, well-rubbed wood or animal horn. Used for cutlery, ornaments and jewelry. When using this technique, use it in the final finishing step. This is because there is room for gold and silver to melt in the middle of the production process. Gold parts can be attached when the melting temperature is lower than the manufacturing temperature. Pure precious metals such as gold and silver have a very similar atomic structure and therefore have a good potential for bonding. Heating these metals to a temperature between 260–370°C increases the movement of the atoms. When pressure is added, this causes an electron exchange…

Lowbrow

Lowbrow, or lowbrow art, describes an underground visual art movement that arose in the Los Angeles, California, area in the late 1970s. It is a populist art movement with its cultural roots in underground comix, punk music, tiki culture, and hot-rod cultures of the street. It is also often known by the name pop surrealism. Lowbrow art often has a sense of humor – sometimes the humor is gleeful, sometimes impish, and sometimes it is a sarcastic comment. Most lowbrow artworks are paintings, but there are also toys, digital art, and sculpture. Characteristics The lowbrow is reappropriating codes from popular media such as comics, advertising, graffiti, cartoon and anything that is not considered part of the world of classical “fine arts”. It is considered part of the “surrealist pop”. The lowbrow art is often humorous, sometimes joyful, sometimes mischievous, sometimes sarcastically. Most lowbrow works are paintings, but they can also…