Art is all around us — in our parks, post offices, houses of worship, schools and other public buildings. The buildings themselves may be works of art. Many towns have art museums or galleries. We often don’t really notice the art in our environment because we don’t take time to stop and look.

This week, The Mini Page learns more about the elements, or building blocks, of art.

The building blocks

Artists use seven elements of art to create their works. These elements are:

• line
• form
• value
• space
• shape
• color
• texture

These elements allow the artist to deliver messages, make the viewer feel and think, tell stories or create beauty.

Drawing the line

The line is the main building block of art. It can be an outline, a shading line, straight, curved, zigzagging or spiral.

Different types of lines create different feelings. For example, how does a zigzagging line make you feel? Zigzags can create strong emotions; they give a sense of energy and activity. Your eyes have to work harder, so there is more tension than if your eye just moved straight across the surface of the artwork.

What kind of feelings do curvy lines create? How about straight lines?

Shapes

Lines come together to form shapes. For example, three lines come together to form a triangle. Four lines may form a square. One continuous line that’s bent forms a circle. Shapes can be flat, or they can have depth.

Creating forms

When we add depth, shapes become forms with three dimensions: length, width and depth. For example, a square becomes a cube, a circle becomes a sphere and a triangle becomes a cone or pyramid.

Space

Shapes and forms exist in space. Space creates forms. Positive space is the part of the picture that your eye focuses on. It is the scenery, the person or the object that is the subject of the art.

Negative space is the empty space around the subject. It is the area around, above, below or within objects. It is the background.

Color

Colors create moods and a sense of movement. If artists put contrasting colors, such as red and green, next to each other, the colors seem to vibrate.

Single colors can seem to move too. Warm colors, such as red, orange and yellow, look like they come forward in space. Cool colors, such as green and blue, seem to move back in space.

Texture

Texture is how a thing feels or how it looks like it would feel. Artists use elements such as light and dark to give materials such as cloth or glass a feeling of texture.

Value

Value refers to the lightness or darkness of a color or hue.

Artists may lighten a color by mixing it with white, or darken it by mixing it with black. It’s especially easy to see value in black-and-white art and photographs.

Resources

On the Web:

• bit.ly/MPartelements

At the library:

• “The Elements of Art” by Maren Daniels

Mini Fact: The lines and colors of this felt banner (untitled) by Richard Anuszkiewicz make it seem as if the design is moving in and out.