CFE Study Guide 3.0 Notes

Pencil Grades / Darkness

  • B for Bold
  • The higher the number, the darker the pencil.
  • Varying pressure helps develop value range in lines and shading.

Graphite Rendering Techniques

  • Hatching, Cross-Hatching, Stippling, Scumbling/Scribbling, Blending/Smudging, Cross-Contour Hatching
  • Basket weave, Gestural, Expressive
  • Most questions pertain to hatching and cross-hatching.
  • In order to create believable forms, especially in still life, use accurate and consistent lighting and value shading. Objects should have the same directional light source and a good range of values.

Elements of Art

  • Line: A path made by a moving point through space. It is one-dimensional and can vary in width, direction, and length.
  • Shape: Flat, enclosed areas that are two-dimensional (length and height). Artists use both geometric and organic shapes.
  • Color: Perceived by the way light reflects off a surface. Three properties of color: hue (color name), intensity (strength/purity), and value (lightness and darkness).
  • Value: Describes the lightness or darkness of a surface.
  • Texture: Describes the surface quality of an object. Artists use both actual texture (how things feel) and implied texture (how things look like they feel).
  • Space: Used to create the illusion of depth within an artwork. It can also refer to the positive and negative space between, around, or within objects.
  • Form: Three-dimensional (length, width, height) and can be viewed from many angles. Forms have volume and take up space.

Principles of Design

  • Balance: The distribution of visual weight in an artwork. The three types of balance are symmetrical (two sides are the same), asymmetrical (two sides are different but visually weighted equally), and radial (design emerges from center point).
  • Contrast: The difference between elements in a composition. This can happen through a variety of elements such as value change, size difference, etc.
  • Emphasis: The creation of a focal point in an artwork. Emphasis draws the viewer's eye to particular areas of the artwork first.
  • Pattern: Decorates the artwork with regularly repeated elements such as shapes or color.
  • Unity: Means that all elements within the artwork are in harmony. Variety within elements adds interest to the composition.
  • Movement: How the eye travels through an artwork. Movement can lead the viewer from one aspect to another within the composition.
  • Rhythm: The regular repetition of elements such as line, shape, and forms to create interest and consistency.

Types of Balance

  • Symmetrical: Evenly place images on both sides of a mid-line.
  • Asymmetrical: Balance by size and weight, but not evenly from the mid-line.
  • Radial: Repeat shapes and images evenly from the center outward.
  • Tonal & Conceptual: Color

Contour Line Drawing

  • Drawing technique that requires observation and incorporates drawing shadows and elevations as lines, making a topographical map-like drawing.
  • Important: This technique helps you train your eyes to observe images more intentionally.
  • Blind Contour Drawing
  • Continuous Contour

Gestural Drawing Technique

  • This style of drawing is known for quickly capturing the appearance or movements of an object and often is drawn just enough to understand what your seeing and not to completion.
  • This style is often used to capture the motion of poses but can also be used on a still life or landscape drawing perhaps a tree blowing in the wind.
  • Note: Using a light pencil or pressure is helpful to making a gestural drawing so it continues to be usable and editable. It is a very expressive drawing technique.

Proportions and Ratios

  • When creating art we are often required to draw objects at a scale that does not reflect the true scale of the object. This effect may lead to upscaling or downscaling an object which requires an understanding of its ratio.
  • Ratio often refers to the relative height and width of the object.
  • Proportions often has to do with ratios and size especially as they compare to other objects.
  • A good understanding of ratios and proportions help you to develop an accurately scaled image on you paper, Ex. Downscaling Drawing an elephant to fit a paper. Ex. Upscaling Drawing an eye to fit a wall. Ex. The chick is greatly out of proportion as compared to the man.

Viewfinders

  • A viewfinder is a tool used to help imagine a composition. You can use this square or rectangular box to plan the layout of an image drawn from real life like a landscape or still-life.
  • If you are drawing from life and looking to create a good composition of objects on a canvas using a view finder helps to prejudge an idea for composition.

Compositional/Layout Techniques

  • Rule of Thirds, Leading lines, Golden Ratio

Perspective and Illusion of Depth

  • Techniques for developing Depth of Space in an illustration:
    • Diminishing size, Overlapping, Foreshortening, Point perspective, Value shading and Atmospheric perspective.
  • Linear Perspective - perspective used by artists in which the relative size, shape, and position of objects are determined by drawn or imagined lines converging at a point on the horizon.
  • 1 Point Perspective - a drawing method that shows how things appear to get smaller as they get further away, converging towards a single 'vanishing point' on the horizon line. This technique is most commonly used to depict buildings, both inside and out.(It helps to emphasize & identify the form of the buildings.)
  • Aerial/Atmospheric Perspective: the technique of representing more distant objects as fainter, more blue or white tinted and less detailed.
  • Point Perspective: Should know how to create and find one point perspective. Identify focal point and horizon lines (also # of points).
  • Diminishing size : the effect of an object being drawn smaller as it become further from the viewer.
  • Overlapping: Objects overlapping in the image helps us understand that one is in front of another.
  • Value shading: especially for objects that are drawn closely, the shading of the object helps us to understand its 3 dimensionality aka depth. Don’t forget that a deeper range of value really helps to influence the depth appearance.
  • Foreshortening: the technique of depicting an object or human body in a picture so as to produce an illusion of projection or extension in space. This technique used to draw the visual distortion created by perspective as it pertains to an individual object. Often a human body.

Creative Process

  • When creating an artwork it is important to adjust your ideas, making revisions along the way to create a more considerate and planned artwork. To be successful in art you need to develop good strategies for development. The following things we have learned can help with this:
    • A Creative Process that includes:
      • Developing Ideas
      • Practicing skills
      • Finding Information
      • Developing plans and compositions
      • Finalizing work
      • Growing from experience
    • The Feldman’s Critiquing method which identifies:
      • Detailed observational skills
      • Understanding of vocabulary, process application and compositional effects
      • Looking for meaning and understanding
      • Developing opinions
  • Developing ideas
    • Brainstorming
    • Word webs
    • Identifying preexisting knowledge
  • Practice Skill and Research
    • Practice sketches of components of the image
    • Practicing specific tools for the art
    • Looking up additional relevant information.
  • Planning and Designing Composition
    • Drawing thumbnails is the first step in creating your final drawing.
    • Considering how to develop interest through the principles of design and other compositional strategies.
  • Revise and solidify final Design
  • Work on Final
    • Start by drawing a light underdrawings of your thumbnail.
    • Work up the details and values
    • The work is done when all your creative goals are accomplished.
  • Reflect
    • An Artist statement can be helpful to communicate your intended ideas of the artwork and can be included in peoples interpretation of it.
    • Sharing, critiquing your work and getting critiqued are important to considering what you could improve or would change and growing from the experience.
    • Feldman’s Critiquing method The Creative Process
    • Its mostly important to understand the general sequence of events.
    • By utilizing this process and having a plan it will help with your time management for art.

Feldman Method – D,A,I,J

  • Describe: What does the image look like in as great detail as possible often including Elements of Art and artist label information.
  • Analyze: What techniques does the artist use to develop an interesting and well composed image. This often includes talking about composition(the placement of imagery) and principles of Design, supporting your analysis with the aforementioned elements of art.
  • Interpret: Using what you know from your own experiences to make a subjective theory of the artist intentions for how and why they created the art work. Also using this time to question choices, search for symbolism and meaning.
  • Judge: Your opinion on things like whether you thought the art was or was not successful, interesting etc. and why you have drawn those conclusions. It is important to reflect upon artworks, others and even your own.
  • Analysis: In this image the artist illustration falls into the use of the Rule of Thirds and the Golden Ratio. Our eyes are guided through the image by the movement of the wave through the linear style. The rhythm of the claw like froth helps to draw your eyes into the details of the image. The image appears to be balanced by the looming and large wave on the top left against the smaller illustrations of the boats and mountain on the bottom right. The stark contrast of the foregrounds blue hues of the waters against the muted beige and white of the background also help to achieve a color or perhaps tonal balance within the image.
  • Interpretation: I believe that this image was created to illustrate a beautiful landscape of the seas around Mt Fuji that also invokes thoughts to the treachery of the ocean through the scene created. I believe that Mt Fuji is a central figure to the image as it a focal point of the image created by the shape and movement of the wave. I have heard that some people interpret the wave as a Tsunami but I believe that the addition of the boats was intended to help us understand the perspective of the image, as we can see that although the wave may be a threat to the boaters it is not much bigger than the boat is long. Therefore, it does not threaten the mountain nor the land. I also think that the artist depicted the froth of the waves as these claw like shapes with the intention putting the boats in even more obviously dire situation.
  • Judgement: I personally think this image is beautiful. I think that many people are attracted to this images because of the artist use of design and composition, narrative and bold linear style. I think the success of this image is proven by its iconic nature, as it is still used in modern media today on clothing and in appropriated art. I think that if you asked most people on the streets of America you would be more likely to have people recognize seeing this image before than depictions of many of our presidents (other than the recent ones or those on money).
  • Description: Title: The Great Wave off Kanagawa Artist: Hokusai Medium: Ink/Woodblock print Created: Japan, 1820-1831 In this images foreground we see a depiction of a large frothy wave soaring over two long boats filled with what maybe human figures. Also in the top left of the foreground is two vertical scripts one placed within a text box like design separating it from the image. In the background of the image the sky is beige as is reflective of the material it is printed on with a single subtle cloud depicted in the sky that takes up the majority of the space and a single snow covered mountain top int the lower right. The images uses very bold lines to outline the individual features as well as bold colors of blue in the waves

Utilize the Steps of the Creative Process

  • Identify steps of art making and how they help.
  • Brainstorming- helps you develop ideas and identify what you already know.
  • Researching- Looking up more information on your topic to incorporate a more prepared artwork.
  • Sketching- Practicing drawing or components of drawings to develop your skill for your final drawing. Helps to work past misunderstandings.
  • Thumbnails- Help to plan out the placement of visual elements in your drawing to make it more interesting and organized. Also develop several variations of your idea.
  • Light under sketch of final drawing- Keeps things organized before working on details. Stops your from misplacing details and wasting time restarting.
  • Adding details values colors etc.
  • Completed: Art is complete when you believe your ideas are fully developed.
  • Discuss and reflect- Evaluating an artwork for current and future ideas and development.

Art Vocabulary and Techniques

  • Elements of art: Line, Shapes, Color, Value, Texture, Space, Forms
  • Implied, Perceived and Actual Texture
  • Principles of Design: Balance, Contrast, Emphasis, Pattern, Rhythm, Unity, Movement
  • Variety- The use of variation in an image to create interest.
  • Positive/Negative Space
  • Techniques for developing Depth of Space in an illustration:
    • Diminishing size, Overlapping, Foreshortening one point perspective and atmospheric perspective.
  • Point Perspective: Should know how to create and find one point perspective. Identify focal point and horizon lines (also # of points).

Skills in Creating Art and Composition

  • Show skills in the ability to create art and composition through observation using figurative, representational and abstract techniques.
    • Hyper Realistic/Realistic Representational – Mostly Realistic
    • Figurative – Objects still recognizable but drawing techniques become more visible.
    • Abstract – Represents something but altered to be much less or not barely.
    • Gestural drawing- Usually a quick capture of the general form and action of a object capturing a potentially more emotional aspect.
    • When drawing humans this usually captures there posture and potentially movement.

Representational vs Non-Representational

  • Rep: Illustrates something recognizably, the meaning of such a work is usually obvious and can possibly have mild abstraction.
  • Non-Rep: Doesn’t represent the real work, Often includes shapes colors and lines. Meanings are often subjective and imagery is abstract.
  • Note: When comparing 2 images and one shows something identifiable and the other does not this may be the key difference between the images.

Themes and Styles of Artwork

  • What does it mean to recognize themes and styles of artwork?
    • Students should be able to identify reoccurring elements in a series of images that can be interpreted as a theme. Ex. Chuck Close has a theme of Portraits and for some series of his work grids and abstractions

Individual Artist Influences

  • Art eras/styles/movements:
    • Renaissance
      • Leonardo Davinci
      • Michelangelo
      • Albrecht Dürer
    • Expressionism
      • Kathe Kollwitz
    • Impressionism
      • Claude Monet
    • Cubism
      • Pablo Picasso
    • Surrealism
      • Salvador Dali
    • Pop Art
      • Andy Warhol

Medieval vs Renaissance

  • Within the western art world we go through a transition from artwork directed towards more utilitarian goals of cultural use into increasingly aesthetic goals. This transitional cut often is indicated with the term Movement when discussing styles and goals of art.
    • Telling the difference between the Medieval art (L) and Renaissance Art (R)
      • Differences: Stylistic vs realistic
      • Similarity: Focus on Christian themes
  • Works by: Davinci(Left), Michelangelo (Right), Dürer (Center)
    • (L) Example how some of His work studies helped to develop understanding of anatomy.
    • (C) Was a man before his time and was a realist during the renaissance.
    • (R) Shows us a good example of how these artist would practice their art before finalizing.
  • Renaissance
    • Stylistically interested in realistic drawing, themes of Christianity (as it was main source of commission) and studies of process and practice. Additionally, know for depth in architectural drawings using point perspective.

Realism

  • A movement in which the goals and focus of the works were not only to develop artwork which was realistic looking but also that depicted real and often everyday life without embellishments.
    • Side-note: there are many identified movements between the renaissance and this movement but are not entirely relevant to the EOC.
    • Note: Realism is about Representing Life Truthfully.
    • Gustave Courbet (L) was the first artist to self-consciously proclaim and practice the realist aesthetic.
    • Note: Realism or depicting a real life experience can be a theme of artwork.

Expressionism

  • This movement presents the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas.
  • Edvard Munch(L), Francis Bacon(C), Kathe Kollwitz(R)
    • Artist like Kollwitz primary focus was to draw just enough information to capture the emotional feelings of her figures.
    • Note: The work of Kollwitz often uses the same material of charcoal and has themes of human grief.

Impressionism

  • characterized by visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities, ordinary subject matter, unusual visual angles, and inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience.
  • Claude Monet (2L), Edgar Degas(R)
    • Imagery focused more on scenes of life and real places, pushing the reality of images in the areas of texture and color.
    • Note: Art movements ike this and the post impressionist movements like: Fauvism, Cubism and post/Neo-impressionism expanded the diversity and creativity of art.

Cubism

  • This movement helped to diversify style and creativity in art.
  • Geometric (focusing on 2d shapes and 3d forms) and abstract.
  • Notable artist Pablo Picasso.
  • artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from a single viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context.

Surrealism

  • a art movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself.
  • This style is often described by its use of dreamlike imagery .
  • The style often uses symbolism to create ideas, meaning and depth to be interpreted by the viewer.
  • Salvador Dali (L), Fida Kahlo (C), Rene Magritte (2x R) are key artist.
    • Note: Dali would be a great artist to research when developing your own Surrealist or dreamlike artworks.

Pop Art

  • A movement challenging traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular and mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane mass-produced objects.
  • Andy Warhol (L), Roy Lichenstein (R) are Key artist.
    • Note: Some of the goals of this movement were to introduce popular cultural imagery into the artworld as well as push the definition of art into an expanded idea.

Additional Key Artist

  • Chuck Close
    • Well known for his large scale images.
    • Often following a consistent theme of portraits.
    • His processes involved gridding heavily.
  • MC Escher
    • Most of his works are intricate drawings that incorporate transformations and repeating patterns.
    • The tile like effect of his patterns are called tessellations.
    • These tessellations require a good understanding of positive and negative space.
  • Francisco Guardi
    • Much of his work incorporated detailed drawings of the Venice cityscape.
    • His understanding and use of point perspective and other depth creating techniques can be seen in the image bellow.
    • Also notice the ways in which he draws your eyes to the back of the image.

Chiaroscuro

  • is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. This often Emphasizes the subject.
  • Heavy contrast of light and mostly involves paintings.
  • Looks like “Churro” also Oscuro means Dark in Spanish.

Art and World Issues

  • How can we develop art that attacks the issues of the world?
    • Artwork often compete with political issues through things like propaganda, comic strips and anti war imagery or even individual experiences, recovery and more.
    • An artist’s work often follow commonalities called themes. These themes can be represented through goals like these. Theme: of Political activism or Mental Health

Materials and Ideas

  • How Materials influence ideas?
    • Materials can become part of the conversation.
    • Sometimes its just more interesting like the coffee ship.
    • Sometimes it has meaning like the fish being made from reclaimed ocean plastics. (Environmental awareness)
    • Sand can represent time, Ice Can represent stillness and a ability to transform/degrade.
    • Note: The use of Mixed media is best used to bring interest and complexity to an artwork.

Plagiarism in Art

  • What does it mean to cheat in art?
    • Artist often create art derived from their experiences and influences in art and I can be a fine line when deciding if the created artwork is too similar to pre-existing artwork.
    • Plagiarism: The practice of taking someone else's work or even ideas and passing them off as one's own.
    • Give credit where credit is due.
    • Situations were plagiarism is in question:
      • Copying ideas
      • Appropriation
      • Mimicking art
      • Copying (Exactly for practice or with new media)
      • Making money/Awards
    • In School and for the sake of learning is OK!

Technology and Art

  • How does technology influence the relevance of art today?
    • Photoshopping techniques
    • Can help with planning thumbnail compositions.
    • Technology makes art more accessible through media and platforms.
    • Many of us have never see the Monalisa in person but none the less we know it and it even influences our culture.
    • We can even see the art of a kid on the other side of the world with a few swipes through Instagram.