Chapter 1.1. We are in Part One: Fundamentals in our textbook here;
Gateway's Third edition. We're going to
cover line shape and the principle of
contrast. We'll start out with line
but before we do that I just wanted to
talk about the Elements and Principles a
little bit. Right down here there's a
listing: Elements and
Principles and on page 41 (if you looked
in the textbook right before this
chapter starts) you'll get a listing of
those and each under each heading of
elements and principles. It's also
sometimes called the principles of
design but the elements and principles
are formalism and those are our
fundamentals.  I know it's a lot to
remember all in one go,  but this is
repeated throughout the next ten
chapters. I'll talk more
about that,  but just know that when
you're talking about Formalism this is
talking about;  is the elements and the
principles. So the elements are the
vocabulary of art and the principles are
the grammar. Another way to think about
it (and I'm going to back up to this
image) is a recipe perhaps. Okay? So,  our
elements would be our ingredients like;
eggs flour sugar butter chocolate. Right?
In this case we're looking at this [image]
our element could be circles. These
different circles,  and then there's a
sort of stripe of orange that the circles are stuck in. So that would be our
eggs [so to speak]. But the way they're arranged is all in a straight row; that would be our
principle. If that makes sense? 
How are we organizing them? They're
unified,  they're balanced,  they're
repetitive.
So the circles are repeating and
exactly the same size and shape. They
are held in this grid evenly spaced. That's how the principles are at work;
that's what we're seeing. This an outcome
of using a circle (which is an elemental
shape). What we do is a bunch of color in this
one. These are straight lines just some
lines of a rendering architectural
drawing this is an abstracted bunch
of lines. A painting and then another
drawing over here;  so these have variety. 
These five circles have a variety of
things happening in them: textures,  line
quality,  color. But they're arranged in a
unified way. This is going to make
hopefully more sense in the next few
chapters.  I just wanted to kind of
get you onto the basics of the elements
and principles. Our authors are  using
vocabulary and grammar [as an analogy] another way to
think about vocabulary is like I said
the ingredients and then the grammar is
the recipe. Mostly we're going to
cover two-dimensional work
in this chapter. Chapter one point two is
going to be three-dimensional work. So
you have height and width but not depth. 
Now I'm going to say that,  but our first
example is a sculpture! Lines are
a most fundamental thing that we use as
artists because it's very easy to draw. It's an urge that we have;  it's very
primal and it's very ancient. We
don't know whether people drew first or
spoke first. That's something we don't
really know,  but they also organize the
visible world. There are different ways [that lines show this].
So, the first thing that we're gonna look
at is the Nazca "Spider", Figure 1.1.1. The 
title is "Spider" and there's a thousand
year range here from before the Common
Era and the Common Era[how old it might be]. The middle number
would be [the year] zero. One hundred and fifty feet
wide. It is in Nazca Peru. Now
this is a high desert area in
Peru. Not much rainfall, so something
2,000 years old would be well preserved
there. The spider actually is a
symbol for rain (by the way). What we
have is a contour that goes
around here,  but and this is actually
an outline. It doesn't have anything but
the the exterior shape and line of what
a spider would look like if we were
looking straight down
on it. There's no showing
us the the the form of this
three-dimensionally;  we're just looking
at it straight down as a line. The
way the lines here are created are by
moving rocks; dark rocks are moved away
from light gypsum. Gypsum is sort of
whitish underneath the surface of those
rocks.  It was
done in the in in the year 500 BC. We
don't know exactly [the date]. It's created
by scraping off the gravel and this is
an example of outline. The definition of
line is connecting two points and I
think that's the same with math;
that's the same definition. But a lot of
other things are going to be very different
than any kind of definition you've
perhaps learned. [Line] defines
shapes; it defines boundaries. It directs
the viewers eye and it can convey a
sense of movement and energy. This is a
drawing (a pen and watercolor) if you look
down here. This [number] is showing us our height and width. Height is always first,
this dimension is always first then width
this second.  This [Figure in the book] is a better example
of what we want to talk about with
dimensionality. A two-dimensional work
doesn't have a third dimension; doesn't
have a a depth. This has though,
implied depth. This is confusing to
you maybe right now but just know that
in the Renaissance,  when this was drawn and painted,  he's
trying to show us one-point perspective.
All these lines converge into one place
and draw our eye right there and in the
center here of the horizon line. Here,
this is our focal point in the middle. 
(sorry I lost my mouse) These lines
all converge and he's using atmospheric
perspective and these directional lines
to imply a depth of space. He's also
showing you with this overlapping here
and the borders of each
three-dimensional shape he's showing you
that to get us further into
believability with three dimensionality
of this space. This is a
two-dimensional artwork. It's implied
depth or implied space. It's defining
the  beginning and end of the
ceiling and the walls and so on and it's
giving us an illusion of three
dimensions. This is the actual space. It
still exists now. Finished in the
Renaissance. You can see the
difference in terms of color and shape
being able to define (and shadow and
lighting and so on)
the three dimensionality of the space as
opposed to the line quality that Dosio
was using. We're now looking at this
piece in a different way but we also
still see the lines that converge here
and so on. It's a true rendering,  right?
Slightly different viewpoint . It is a 
rendering but different ways to show us
that line quality. With da Vinci we
have a blueprint form and we see
some dimensionality here in this drawing. 
Because if this were an
outline remember we would just have this
line and then this line and that line. It
would just be that , okay? [no interior lines] That's what an
outline is, but now we're getting into
contour. This line is following the shape
of the wing, right? It's showing us how
this thing reaches out into space. 
It's going to be a contour line. A
contour line is not the complete outline
of the shape but it's trying to show us
the volume and the space. And giving us
some clues about the the surface
changing. Aother example of contour and
volume; Matisse showing
as some dimensionality of her belly here
and breasts and so on and her knee.
We also see it here with the
lines repeating here across that shape.
Also here very simply with the elbow
we see the overlapping of this shape to
here with this simple contour line. That's telling us that there's
dimensionality in that elbow.  Picasso
also uses contour line. This is also
continuous line and that's a project or
a early lesson in drawing where you
can't lift your pencil and you have to
just keep going.  (there's a few breakages
here but you get the idea).  You
continually move your pencil around the
contour of something. Then we then he
comes into the hair and starts doing the
ear and so on. [Continuous line] is an early
lesson in drawing; so that you
understand that you can achieve a
likeness.  (maybe not a perfect likeness
without erasing but it's a continuous
line). Now we're going to get into
functions of line; types of functions. 
There's implied line,  a line that can be
implied by a series of marks. An illusion
that gives the impression of the line
where there is no continuous mark. So
we're going to look at a diagram of
actual lines and implied lines and this
is also very important for you to use
when you're describing works of art in
our essays and in our critiques.
You want to get into all these different
actual lines. An actual line you will see
painted in the painting or drawn in the
drawing. Then implied lines are sort
of objects and this is a good example
right here. There's a bunch of objects
here that recede into space and they are
made up of lines,  but this is also
creating a line;  the tops of these poles
and the bottoms of the poles. We'll get
into that a little bit more in part two [next video]
