Elements of Art and Design. TEXTURE

Elements of Art and Design

TEXTURE

1 Look at the example of artwork Mona Hatoum  Prayer Mat. Did the artist use tactile or visual texture? How would you describe the artwork's texture? 

2 Look at the close-up of  Mona Hatoum’s Prayer Mat. How would you describe the artwork's texture now? What feelings does this artwork create? Take 2-3 minutes to note down your ideas on the meaning of the artwork based on its texture.

3 Look  at the example of  Constantin Brancusi's artwork Bird in Space. Did the artist use tactile or visual texture? How would you describe the artwork's texture?  What feelings does this artwork create? Take 2-3 minutes to note down your ideas on the meaning of the artwork based on its texture.

3 Look at Janet Fish's  pastel on sandpaper drawing Oranges. Notice how the artist used pastels to create visual textures. Open the image using Adobe Photoshop and use different colours to circle the areas where the artist combined different kinds of visual texture:

- use red to find 3 areas of shiny-rough texture

- use green to find 3 areas of shiny-smooth texture

-use yellow to find 1 area of matte-smooth texture

- use blue to find 1 area of matte-rough texture

Compare your findings with other students. Can you find more areas where the artist combined different textures?

4 Choose one of Janet Fish's painting (given below) to comment on the use of visual textures and combination of textures in artwork. (Untitled (Two packages of Pears); Plantains in a Box; Smucker's Jelly) 

5 How can designers use textures in their work? Where can you find examples of textures in graphic  design? Where else can textures be used? Follow the link and study the example of textures used in packaging design. What kind of packaging did the designer create? Why did he choose to use the textures? What effect did it create?

6 Artists can invent textures. For example, Max Ernst used three unusual techniques to create his paintins: frottage, grattage, and decalcomania.

Frottage is a method of placing a freshly painted canvas side-up over a raised texture and scraping the surface of the paint. Some paint remains and creates a pattern; this pattern is the image of the texture below.

Max Ernst.  The Entire City. 1934. Oil on paper laid on canvas

Grattage  is the technique of scratching into wet paint with sharp tools (for example, forks, razors, and combs) to create different textures.

Max Ernst.  Forest and Dove. 1927.  Oil on canvas

Decalcomania  is the technique of creating texture patterns by pulling apart two canvas surfaces between which paint has been placed.

Max Ernst.  The Eye of Silence.  1943-44.  Oil on canvas

How would you describe the texture of the paintings? What feelings do the paintings create? Take 2-3 minutes to note down your ideas on the meaning of the paintings based on their texture.

7 OVER TO YOU. a) Find examples of  different textures combined in artwork (for example shiny-rough and matte-rough textures). b) find two inspirational examples of using texture in packaging (product packaging), c) create your own product packaging for the product of your choice using texture, explain your choice of texture and the effect you want this texture to create, d) try  ONE of the  three unusual techniques: frottage, grattage, and decalcomania in your artwork OR find an inspirational example of the paintings created using one of the three techniques.