When you’re composing a painting, you want viewers to become involved in your piece.
Your composition should be interesting and compel them to linger while exploring the details and nuances you’ve included.
Learning how to give your audience a satisfying experience is something you’ll develop with time and experience, but here are a few tips to speed you along in your quest for interesting and dynamic composition.
Structuring your painting’s layout to engage the viewer consists of a lot of elements. This makes up your composition, and many elements can be employed to create a pleasing painting.
Balance
A balanced composition creates a calm setting. Conversely, an asymmetrical composition denotes agitation. Imbalance and awkwardness in a composition can cause apprehension in a viewer. This can be very powerful, if that is the emotion you’re going for in your composition.
Unity
All the components of your composition should feel natural. If something feels stuck on like a postage stamp, it may be extraneous to the overall composition.
Movement
Movement is achieved in many ways. The position of overlapping objects, the vanishing point of a perspective drawing, the direction of a road, river or the fold of fabric on a table all are ways to move the viewer’s eye through your painting.
Rhythm
Repetitious strokes, motifs and colors are the artist’s instruments in creating rhythm. The systematic use of a brushstroke can show progression, interrupt a path or cause the viewer’s eye to stop and look. Recurring variations of shapes are also rhythmic and the mind subconsciously registers these as complementary units of the composition. Variations of a color within a composition can also be used as a method of creating rhythm.
Focus
Every composition needs a focal point. A viewer’s mind needs a place to rest and regroup, and the focus of the painting gives that opportunity. Once the focal point is determined, the viewer can explore the rest of the painting and its relationship to the center of attention.
Proportion
In most compositions, proportion is an important factor. The relationship between components, subjects and the background are all relative. Perspective and understanding the size and scope of the painting’s components is important in presenting a professional and appealing composition.
Pattern
The pattern of your composition is the underlying structure. It’s the basic shapes and lines from which your composition is constructed. The pattern can be similar to the rhythm, but is even more basic.
Contrast
As every art student knows, contrast is the difference between light and dark. While contrast can be very striking, it can also be nominal. A minimal amount of contrast gives the viewer a quiet, intimate viewing, while strong contrast rather shouts. Carefully considering where you contrasts lie allows you to direct the viewer’s attention and draw his attention to one place or move him toward another.
As you’re planning your next composition, consider these eight components as you sketch your idea. Try out several devices and see which element work best for your painting.
You don’t need to use every compositional element for every painting. You may want to do a series of sketches to see how each one adds to your composition or fails to add the punch you want. These studies can be valuable in learning which techniques work best with your style and
the subject matter you’re portraying.
