Texture in art — Art, 7–10 years
Artists show how something might feel, or how its surface looks, even when the picture is flat.
What texture does
Texture is the way a surface feels or seems to feel: rough bark, smooth glass, soft wool or sharp stone. In a drawing or painting, marks, colours and shapes can suggest these surfaces without making them touchable. Texture helps us imagine what we are seeing.
Why artists use texture
A flat sheet cannot really show that a tree trunk is rough or that a jumper is soft. Artists needed ways to make viewers notice different surfaces and imagine touching them. Texture also stops every part of a picture from feeling equally plain.
Making bark look rough
Draw a tree trunk with two sides and a curved top. First, fill it with long, uneven lines that follow the bark. Next, add small dark cracks beside some lines, leaving other areas lighter. Finally, rub a little brown pencil over the marks. The different marks make the surface seem rough instead of smooth.
Texture is not just many marks
A common mistake is covering everything with lots of tiny lines, thinking that more marks must mean more texture. That is understandable: rough things often have many bumps. But a smooth shell, a shiny apple and soft fur need different marks, spaces and tones. Texture should match the surface you want to show.
Texture outside the art room
Texture helps people choose objects and understand them. A clothing label may show a soft fabric, packaging may use a rough patch to suggest a natural product, and a video game may make stone, grass and metal look different. In each case, the surface gives information before we touch it.
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