The Seven Key Elements of Art Making

Written By Stephanie Broder

I first learned about the elements of art in my incredible high school art class. My thorough, talented, and innovative art teacher taught me all the basics by the time I graduated.

However, during my time as an undergrad art student and as an instructor, I learned that not everyone had such a strong foundation in their art learning! The good news is it’s never too late to learn these basic skills. You probably already think about and apply them intuitively, but giving names to the skills you use can really help accelerate them.

Here’s an introduction to the seven key elements of art-making:

  1. Line

A line is a mark made by a tool, like a pen or a brush. Lines can be straight, curved, thick, thin, zigzag, or even dotted. They guide your eye and create shapes or patterns in art.

The mark-making tool you use greatly affects the quality of lines, even digitally 

2. Shape

A shape is a flat, enclosed area. Shapes can be geometric (like circles, squares, and triangles) or organic (freeform and not as structured). Shapes make up most things you see in a picture.

At the most basic level, you can make art with simple shapes like circles, triangles and squares

3. Form

Form is a shape that looks three-dimensional, even if it's just drawn on paper. Forms include spheres, cubes, cylinders, etc., and they often have shading to make them appear like they pop out.

Since giving the illusion of form often includes perspective, my post 7 Tools for Drawing Perspective Without a Ruler may help you get started

4. Colour

Colour is what we see because of reflected light. It has three main parts: hue (the actual colour like red, blue, or green), value (how light or dark the colour is), and intensity (how bright or dull the colour is). Colours can set the mood in art.

Bright, popping colours can make an image appear childlike and welcoming, like in my illustration about tidal pool discovery

5. Value

Value is how light or dark something is, not just in colour but also in black and white. Light and dark areas create depth and contrast, making things look more interesting.

It’s often easier to see values clearly when an image is in greyscale - we can see the lightest values in the image circle around the focal point of the characters’ faces

6. Texture

Texture is how something feels or looks like it would feel if you could touch it (like rough, smooth, soft, or bumpy). In art, texture can be imagined and shown through lines, shading, and colour. Texture can also be real, however. Think of fabric artists sculpting something with fur or leather or a 2D artist adding sculpting gel to their paint.

The illusion of textured feathers in my illustration of The Crow King is created by lots of line work 

7. Space

Space is the area around and between things in art. It includes the background, foreground, and everything in between. Space can make things look close or far away and give a sense of depth.

The sense of space in this image is created by layering and blur effects, creating the illusion that Mimi and the fish are closest to us and there’s trees in the mid-ground and background

Stephanie Broder
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