Formal Elements

CROSS HATCHING

Cross Hatching uses two or more sets of fine parallel lines drawn closely together, to create the illusion of shade or texture in a drawing, describing light and shadow.  Multiple layers in varying directions can be used to create textures as in Vincent van Gogh's 1889 drawing called the Fountain in the Hospital Garden at Saint-Rémy where you can see the crosshatching in the fountain bricks.

Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro is the technique using light and shade to achieve a three-dimensional quality, it's an Italian word meaning light-dark.  In this 1609 oil painting by Peter Paul Ruebens, chiaroscuro is used to highlight the muscles on Samson and the curves on Delilah's chest.

 

Analogous Color

The analogous color scheme uses 3 colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel. One color is used as a dominant color while others are used to enrich the scheme.  They are pleasant to the viewer because they are closely related.  Vincent Van Gogh uses Orange, yellow-orange, and yellow in his 1888 oil painting  called Sunflowers.

Primary Colors

Primary colors are red, yellow and blue.  They are the original colors on the color wheel and can not be created by mixing other colors.  In the 1627 painting by Nicolas Poussin red, yellow and blue are the main colors in his painting.

Pattern

pattern is the repetition of an element in artwork and the artist achieves a pattern through the use of colors, lines, or shapes.  There are patterns of colors and lines in Fernand Léger's 1914 painting called the "Exit the Ballets Russes". 

Op Art

Optical painting is when the artist manipulates light, color fields or repeated patterns of lines to produce an optical illusion.  An example of this type of artwork is Frank Stella's 1964 painting Fez (2), where Stella creates the illusion of movement in the lines where the colors meet.