Edexcel A-Level Art and Design formal elements and visual language overview quiz quiz

Line, tone, colour, shape, form, texture, pattern, space

Paint, pencil, charcoal, ink and the other drawing media

AO1, AO2, AO3 and AO4 assessment objectives

Composition, balance, contrast, rhythm and proportion

Outline alone, drawn with a single continuous contour

Tone (the range of light and shade)

Colour saturation and intensity

Repeated surface pattern

The highlight

The mid-tone

The core shadow

The reflected light

Red, yellow, blue

Warm, cool and neutral

Primary, secondary and tertiary

Hue, saturation and value

Vibrancy and contrast

A restful sense of harmony and calm

A flat, muted neutral grey

No noticeable effect at all

Always place the main subject dead centre so that it sits in perfect symmetry

Place key elements off-centre, on the dividing lines or intersections

Restrict the palette to exactly three colours

Divide the work into three equal horizontal stripes of colour

An accidental mistake or gap left in the drawing

A particularly dark tone

The area around and between the objects

The frame or border around the picture

Calm and delicate

Cold and precise

It carries no meaning

Energetic and tense

Strong tonal contrast between deep darks and bright lights, used for drama

A type of fast-drying paint favoured by Renaissance fresco painters working on walls

A composition rule about subject placement

A method of mixing complementary colours

Mid-tones are simply the wrong colour to use for any realistic three-dimensional drawing of an object

Form depends on a wide tonal range, so a narrow band of greys gives no sense of light turning

It relies far too heavily on outline and line

It contains far too many bright highlights

Warm colours always recede into the distance while cool colours advance forward

Warm and cool colours both advance equally

Warm colours tend to advance, cool colours tend to recede

Colour temperature has no effect on depth

Using the most expensive and professional materials available to you

Making the final piece as physically large as possible

Cramming in as much fine surface detail as possible

Planning the composition deliberately with thumbnail studies