Elements and Principles of Art

Line

This Challenge Accepted meme uses line in a powerful way.  The character is entirely made up of strong lines, which give off a feeling of confidence or stubbornness.  The whole idea of this meme is to take things people always say aren't possible and stubbornly say it IS possible and I'm going to do it.  Just by looking at the lines that make up this character (the bold smirk, bold crossed arms, bold half-closed and not-worried eyes), you can get that feeling of stubbornness and you know that the character will go to great lengths to win the so called challenge.

Texture

This painting uses texture to give the effect that you're looking through a waterfall.  The wavy appearance looks like water, but you can still tell there is a pond and a leafy scenery behind it.  I absolutely loved this painting as soon as I found it because the texture gives such a cool feeling to the painting.  I haven't seen anything like it before.  The texture makes the viewer feel relaxed.

Color

Andy Warhol is known for his use of colors in his prints, so it only makes sense that I would choose one of his to demonstrate color.   Warhol has a series of this same flower print, all using a different color scheme.  This one uses earthy blues and greens, but there are others that use fiery reds and oranges or calm pastel yellows and blues.  Warhol relies color to give each print a different feel. 

Emphasis

This painting uses emphasis to put your focus on the center of this painting.  The center of the flower is a bright blue that catches your eye every time.  From there, your eyes naturally follow the petals to the ends because the artist started with a blue center and then made it gradually more pink as your eyes travel outward.  Finally, the canvas all around the flower is black, which emphasizes the flower even more.  There's even emphasis working to make you notice one flower and then the other separately.  The top one has a slightly lighter color scheme, using white on the petal's edges.  The bottom one doesn't have that buffer of white before the black background.  All these uses of emphasis make the painting beautiful and memorable.

Rhythm

This painting has amazing rhythm.  The black and white portion starts out calm, then gets crazy and jumbled, and then calms out again before flowing into the pink section.  The pink section uses different shades of pink to create flowing lines from one side to the other.  These lines are smooth and mostly straight, but they also have some wave to them.  In it's entirety, the painting has a musical feeling to it.  If you start on the left and work your way across following the lines, you have a calm, yet strong, beginning then more starts happening in the piece.  The interwoven lines could be an almost Christina Aguilera worthy riff with notes all over the place until it calms down again in a long held out note at last.  The rest of the piece would is just calm with rises and falls.  The rhythm of this piece makes it what it is.

Balance

This piece has an incredible use of balance.  Every theme that is on the one side is repeated on the other side in some way.  There is a center balance that starts with the two gray blocks with a pink and red border.  From there, the artist added a large tree shape to each block.  The artist also added a jagged shape to each side, some flowing ribbon like lines across both sides, and additional shapes to finish the painting.  Each side is in total balance with the other side.