Shape
Print our class handout on shape vocabulary.
Shapes are all around us. Look around you. Everything you see can be described as a shape or a group of shapes. Some shapes have names that we can agree upon, others are hard to describe. If you can break down what is in your field of vision into shapes, your drawing skills will excel! The trick is to think 'flat' although we know what we are looking at is three dimensional. What is shape? In art, shape is an element of art that is an area formed by a closed line or by an implied line, such as from a color or value change. Another way to think of the implied line is as a border. You might notice an implied line where a yellow sun is in a blue sky. In a coloring book the sun might have an outline, like a black circle, but in the real sky, there is no black line around the sun. In fact, in reality, there are not black lines around anything. Shapes are two-dimensional or flat. Shapes are measured using only two dimensions, for example, length and height. There are two types of shapes:
Shapes can be described as having two kinds of edges, either hard or soft. Shapes can also be considered either positive or negative. Shape is closely related to form, but in art forms are different from shapes. Forms are three dimensional and are measured using three dimensions: length, height, and width (sometimes called depth). Some examples of forms would be a sphere, a cube and a pyramid. |
More Resources
See examples and learn more about the two types of shapes, geometric and organic at: The Artist's Toolkit
Quizlet Geometric Shapes
These are shapes that we think of that are more exact. These shapes are made with straight lines and controlled curves. You might study these shapes in math. Think of circles, triangles and squares. How many geometric shapes can you draw? How many can you name?
Organic Shapes
These are shapes that are like those found in nature. These shapes might also have some straight lines and curves, but the result will look like something found in the natural world rather than in your math class. Can you draw as many organic shapes as you drew geometric shapes?
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