'The formal elements'

Exploring Light and Shape

Light can determine a mood of a piece and the illusion of a piece. Lots of light and bright colours will insinuate a happy, positive feeling and the use of light can make the illusion of a three dimentional appearence on a two dimentional surface.Light may also be a reflected source from a type of medium used or object e.d a sculpture.I have decided to relate my drawing to both light and shape as i think it has strong connections to both aspects. The illusion of light is created in this piece through the pencil marks of dark, medium, light and leaving some areas un touched, revealing the natural lightest area of the paper surface. The illusion makes the hair appear shiny, reflective and three dimentional. It is difficult to determine any emotion in this piece as it is monochrome and an articulate drawing, however the stroung source of light does give the drawing a refreshing feeling and is pleasent, easy to look at.
Shape refers to any area of a imagined or real object which is defined and rendered by other elements such as texture, line, colour, space or light. Like line, shape is an important element in both the rendering and seeing of art, it is used by the artist for three fundamental purposes.1. To suggest or represent a physical form.
2. To achieve order, variety, and harmony in the composition.
3. To express different qualities of moods and feelings.
I wanted to also use the same drawing to relate to shape as I particularly thought the shape was interesting. The drawing can obviously be seen as hair however the shape of thehair is unusual and can be interpreted as different thing, affecting the emotion and feeling towards the drawing. Personally, it reminds me of a silk coil of thread, a snail shell, a slinky toy and also a rolled up hedge hog. Shape can determin many things and can also lead the viewer to imagine differet things that the piece can become, relate or look like and personally, I found that being able see an obvious drawing as something else through observation and imagination is extremely emotionally effective and can change the meaning of a piece.