Title: Forms
Course: EN_Overall composition > Section: 3. The elements of art and design

Form is a three-dimensional object with volume of height, width and depth. Like line and surface, they can be distinguished according to geometrically constructed and organic forms.

In drawing and painting form can only be implied because they are 2-dimesional media. Artists must use tricks to fool the viewer’s eye so as to create the illusion of the third dimension i.e. depth. This is known as Trompe l’oeil and is achieved using tools like value (shading), colour and contour lines.

Reflection and Practise

Reflect the single shapes and convert them into forms by using small scribbles!

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Just like surfaces, lines and points, bodies trigger certain effects in the viewer. Bodies can have a plastic effect through light-dark modulation by means of colour differentiation, but also through lines as outlines or bundling of lines. Spatial references are created by non-perspective and perspective  processes.

Non-perspectival representation

- Overlapping of the bodies
- Size ratios
- large = front, small = back
- Positional relationships
- bottom = front, top = back
- Brightness gradation in space

Perspective representation

- Parallel perspective
- Central perspective

Other aesthetic areas that play an important role in an examination of form and its effect are quantity, quality, boundary, directional references and surface texture.

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Watch the video about “forms” as elements of art. Understand which way artists use forms to create illusions of depth or deception and illusion.

Elements of Art: Form | KQED Arts (2:57)
Don't forget to complete the work-table "Elements of art"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DIPs3T2dQk

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Practise

- Make a research on five outstanding artworks that use forms to present their subjects.