Line and shape
Lines that tell a story
A line is more than an edge. Straight or wavy, thick or thin, fast or slow: every line gives a feeling. That is how you choose the line that fits.
Topics
All topics
Choose a topic. Every topic starts with a question, shows a drawing sheet to play with, explains how it works, lets you practise and gives you a task on paper.
16 topics
Line and shape
Lines that tell a story, shape and volume, texture, pattern and symmetry.
- Line and shape
Flat or solid: shape and volume
A circle is flat, a sphere has volume. With light, shadow and a few extra lines, you turn a flat shape into something you could almost pick up.
- Line and shape
Texture: how it feels, how it looks
Rough, smooth, soft or grainy: with hatching, cross-hatching, stippling and scribbling you draw how something feels, and make areas lighter or darker.
- Line and shape
Pattern, rhythm and symmetry
Repeat a shape and you get a pattern. Vary the spacing and rhythm comes in. Mirror it and you get symmetry. That is how you create calm, or tension instead.
Colour and light
The colour wheel, complementary colours, warm and cool, light and shadow.
- Colour and light
The colour wheel: mixing with paint and with light
With three primary colours you mix the secondary and tertiary colours. Paint mixes differently from light: paint gets darker, light gets lighter.
- Colour and light
Complementary colours and contrast
Colours opposite each other on the colour wheel make each other brighter side by side and duller when you mix them. That is how you create contrast.
- Colour and light
Warm and cool colours
Red, orange and yellow feel warm; blue, green and purple feel cool. Warm colours seem to come closer, cool and pale colours seem to move back.
- Colour and light
Light and shadow: tonal values
A value scale runs from white to black. With highlight, mid-tone, core shadow, reflected light and cast shadow, you draw how light falls on a shape.
Space and composition
Proportions, perspective with one and two vanishing points, composition.
- Space and composition
Proportions of a face and a figure
The eyes are halfway down the head and an adult is about seven to eight heads tall. With guide measurements like these, you draw people who look right.
- Space and composition
Perspective with one vanishing point
Lines that run away from you meet in one point on the horizon line. With that rule you draw a street, a corridor or a room with depth.
- Space and composition
Perspective with two vanishing points
When you see a building from the corner, its edges run to two points on the horizon line. Vertical lines stay vertical.
- Space and composition
Composition: rule of thirds, balance and focal point
Where you place something in your picture changes what it tells. With the rule of thirds, balance and a focal point, you steer the eye of whoever is looking.
Looking at art
Framing and viewpoint, figurative and abstract, reading an artwork, art from the Low Countries.
- Looking at art
Framing and viewpoint: photo and film
How close the camera comes and where it looks from change what you feel. Long shot, medium shot, close-up and extreme close-up; bird's-eye view, eye level and worm's-eye view.
- Looking at art
Figurative, stylised and abstract
A figurative work shows something you can recognise. Abstract work lets go of that and speaks with line, shape and colour. In between lies a sliding scale.
- Looking at art
Reading an artwork in four steps
Describe, analyse, interpret, judge. With those four steps you look for longer, say more than nice or ugly, and back up your opinion.
- Looking at art
Art from the Low Countries through time
From the Flemish Primitives through Bruegel and Rubens to Ensor and Magritte: six centuries of art from our part of the world, and where you can really go and see it today.