Texture and Pattern

Definition: The surface character of a material that can be experienced through touch or the illusion of touch, produced by natural forces or through an artist’s manipulation of the art elements.

Actual Texture: A surface that can be experienced through the sense of touch (as opposed to a surface visually simulated by the artist).

Assemblage: A technique that combines actual items in a display (usually three-dimensional).

Collage: A technique of picture making in which real materials possessing actual textures are attached on the picture plane surface, often in combination with painted or drawn passes.

Pattern: Any artistic design or repeated element that is usually varied and produces interconnections and directional movements.

Tactile: A quality that refers to the sense of touch.

Trompe L’oeil: Literally “deceives the eye”; a painting technique that copies nature with such exactitude as to be mistaken for the real thing.

In art quilts, it is possible to use line, shape, color and value (the other elements of art) to create patterns and simulated textures in the creation of a fabric collage or quilt. We can easily add three-dimensional components to our designs, giving them both simulated and actual textures. This is why so many viewers simply have to “touch” our quilts!

Notes:

Art Boot Camp – Deborah Snider, Drill Sergeant –