Design Principles, how they shape the art we see.

The Rehearsal.

Flamarion Woodcut's painting from 1888.

Artist use many different techniques in order to achieve the look and feel that they want their work to portray.  One of those techniques is call asymmetrical balance.  In the Painting to the right, The Rehearsal, the artist achieves asymmetrical balance by using directional forces of the smaller forms located in the top left of the painting, and leads you to the larger forms in the bottom right.  Also by using a lot of warmer toned colors throughout this painting, when the artist has the blue it really stands out giving a nice contrast and making the painting feel like in levels out. The stairs on the left gives the painting a feel of continuity, as if the directional forces go in a circular motion by the smaller figures pointing to the larger figures, to the open area near the blue form leading you back to the foot of the stairs, up the stairs and back to the small forms continuously.  It achieves a really contrasting balance.  Another technique is the ability to make a painting feel unified. Woodcut's painting to the left utilizes different things to make this piece feel unified.  Such as the strong cool presence on one side and on the opposite side a strong warm presence with the abundance of yellow.  Also Woodcut uses the repetition of the stars from top right corner to bottom left corner to help unify this work.  And lastly, Woodcut creates a from around the picture plane using similar designs and shapes to border the image in the middle, giving this piece that last touch to solidify the unity in this piece.  Along with those techniques some artist might use scale to get a feeling or message across.  In Bobby Chiu's art below, it shows what looks to be a larger man stealing a bike from a younger and smaller child.  It gives you a sense of justice by using an overly large guard dog with huge teeth in a menacing gesture as if he will be punished by the larger being just as he was punishing the smaller child by stealing his bike.  This creates almost moral feel to it, almost to say do not pick on others smaller than you because there's always someone(or thing) bigger than you.  The dramatically large dog also creates a bit of awe as you can see the people on the outskirts looking in fright and amazement.  These are just some ways in which artist use different design principles to craft their art.

Bobby Chiu's painting.