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TERM 3
GRADE 7
VISUAL ARTS
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CREATE IN 2D: The Visual Language
Artists use the art elements and design principles in their work to communicate messages
and meaning to the viewer. An example of this is the artwork of Nelson Mandela. He
produced a series of lithographs when he was in prison on Robben Island. These show
scenes such as the view from his prison window, the courtyard where he tried to grow
flowers, the guard tower with barbed wire, the hospital, the lighthouse, the harbor where
prisoners were offloaded and the church that prisoners were not allowed to attend. The
artwork is a reminder of a painful time in his life, but he used bright colours as symbols of
hope and something positive in the pictures.
He also made charcoal drawings and used
pastel colours on some areas only.
Using one of Nelson Mandela’s artworks, let
us recap on art elements and design
principles.
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What is a lithograph?
A lithograph is made with a flat-surface printing method using limestone block or a metal
plate. It is based on the idea that grease pushes away water. Artists draw a design on a
plate using special greasy crayons and then cover it with water and ink. The greasy part
absorbs the ink and the wet do not.
CREATING THE ILLUSION OF SPACE ON A 2D SURFACE:
Linear Perspective
A painter works on a flat surface. The image the painter creates is not a real object, person
or landscape. He creates the illusion of space. Before the Renaissance, artists did not
understand how to create the illusion of space on a flat surface. Their landscape paintings
looked flat, like the backdrop of a stage set.
During the Renaissance, the artists devised a clever system to make their paintings and
drawings look more realistic. This mathematical system is called linear perspective. They
discovered that all the parallel lines converge and meet at a specific point on the horizon.
This is called the vanishing point.
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Look at the road the next time you drive through a landscape. It seems to get narrower
and disappear on the horizon.
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An artist uses perspective in a painting to tell people how big or small things are. This is
called proportion. A large building we see in the distance looks very small, although we
know it is quite big.
BUILDINGS AS WORKS OF ART
Everywhere we go, buildings surround us. Buildings supply shelter for human beings. An
architect is a person who plans buildings that people like to look at and are comfortable to
live in. Architects transform a shelter into a work of art.
There are 2 main types of buildings. The one is private and it is usually a dwelling or a
house, and the other is public such as a bank, library or a church. Ancient cities were
made up of houses, temples and palaces that were built from clay bricks. The Romans
invented concrete. Concrete is still used today. After the Industrial Revolution new
materials became available to the architects; steel, large sheets of glass and reinforced
concrete made it possible to build tall skyscrapers.
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Houses tell a lot about how we live, our relationships with others in our family and
neighbourhood, our beliefs, the work we do and our hopes and dreams. The so-called
Cape Malay homes in the Bo-Kaap express the cultural richness brought to the Cape by
slaves in the 17th and 18th century. Bright colours and decorative elements hark back to
exotic places like Indonesia, India, Malaysia and Java. Neighbours lived in harmony side
by side, and still do so today.
http://www.capsol.co.za/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/bo-kaap-cape-town-600x399.jpg
The mud walls of Francina Ndimande’s house are covered by murals that are examples of
the Ndbele culture. The decorations on each home are highly individual and symbolic.
These show the skill of the mother in the home who passes her knowledge down to her
daughter.
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ina+Ndimande's+house.jpg
The Johannesburg Stadium (FNB Stadium), with a
capacity of 94,000, was refurbished for the 2010
Soccer World Cup. One of the recent additions to the
stadium is the outer cladding made of ceramic
concrete tiles. These tiles keep heat down to a
minimum while their sandy colours help this massive
bulging structure, nicknamed the ‘Calabash’, to blend
with the landscape.
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Both the skyscrapers and the stadium are public buildings, but architects have designed
them for different purposes. In the skyscraper, people are packed into their offices, taking
up as little space as possible. As they take up little space on the ground, skyscrapers are
often built in the city centre where buildings are crowded together.
COLLAGE
What is a collage?
It comes from the French word ‘coller’ meaning to glue. It is a kind of artwork and
technique in which different materials such as photographs, pieces of paper or fabric and
found objects, are glued onto paper, canvas or board.
Since ancient times, Japanese calligraphers wrote poems on
sheets of coloured paper that were glued onto a background
to form the image of a landscape filled with other small bits of
paper representing animals or birds.
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m/2011/03/japanese-collage.jpg
In the 17th century in Germany, images of castles and
animals were made out of silk on parchment. Later,
the author Hans Christian Anderson made beautiful
collages of fairies and gnomes for little children. The
collage technique was used by many cultures and
artists throughout the centuries.
It was the Cubist painter George Braque who first
used collage in modern art in 1911. He used letters in
his painting ‘the Portuguese’.
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Pablo Picasso soon followed his example. He was more adventurous and for him there
was no limit to what he could use in a collage. These collages started to look like relief
sculptures rather than 2D paintings.
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Sam Nhlengethwa is a South African artist who creates collages. He has been making art
since 1977. He makes collages that tell the viewer about life in South Africa. He cuts
pictures from magazines and sticks them in his composition. They show his environment
and what it is like to live in the townships.
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ACTIVITY AND ASSESSMENT
On an A4 paper, create a 3D Linear perspective street scene. Include in your buildings,
both private and public dwellings (see notes for information), as well as elements of
nature. Use COLLAGE techniques to complete your work including: Tiling of a roof; torn
paper to imitate trees and shrubs; texturing of the buildings and road (tar surfacing); tissue
paper or cotton wool for clouds.
YOU WILL BE MARKED AS FOLLOWS:
5 marks for a clearly defined horizon and vanishing point as well as buildings graded to horizon
5 marks for the private and public buildings and nature elements
5 marks for the presence of colour and textural elements
5 marks for the satisfactory 3D effect produced through the combined elements
TOTAL MARKS: 20
5
Outstanding
achievement
4
Substantial
achievement
3
Moderate
achievement
2
Elementary
achievement
1
Not achieved
Horizon
Horizon and
vanishing point,
very neat and
accurately drawn
While some errors
in accuracy are
noted, the drawing
of the horizon and
vanishing point is
neat
Errors noted in the
drawing of the
buildings, etc.
graded to the
horizon. Some
errors in neatness
of elements noted
Errors in accuracy
and neatness of
drawing are
noted, and
horizon and
vanishing point is
poorly achieved
Poorly drawn with
very little to no
evidence of
horizon and
vanishing point
Buildings
and
Nature
Captures the
essence of private
and public
buildings.
Excellent use of
natural elements
to compliment this
Captures the
essence of private
and public
buildings, but
natural elements,
while good, could
better compliment
this
Errors in the
capturing of
private and public
buildings, with
natural elements
used adequately
Either private or
public building is
represented, but
not both, and
natural elements
are haphazard or
missing
Buildings are
incomplete and
natural elements
are absent
Texture
and
Colour
Interesting
textures and
excellent use of
collage and colour
Textural elements
are effective, but
some do not
compliment the
overall theme
Fair use of
texture, colour
and collage work
Textural elements
appear to be an
afterthought, and
collage gluing is
untidy
No attempt at
texture. Poorly
coloured in and
collage is absent
Overall
Picture
All elements work
very well together,
with light and
shade used
effectively to
create a 3D effect
All elements, for
the most part,
work well
together. Use of
light and shade
create a 3D effect
While the light and
shade of some
elements create a
3D effect, other
elements appear
2D and can be
improved on
Evidence of light
and shade, but
they do not
achieve the
required 3D effect
No tonal qualities
are evident and
the picture is 2D.
Criteria
TOTAL : 20