Design Composition Guidelines For Fine Artists

Tags: Art Composition

The ultimate guide to learning design and composition ideas.

Last updated 2022-01-10 | 4.9

- You will gain the knowledge to take images and scenery and turn them into workable
- successful paintings.

What you'll learn

You will gain the knowledge to take images and scenery and turn them into workable

successful paintings.

* Requirements

* Pencil and inexpensive paper for completing exercises.
* Willing to participate and complete suggested assignments.

Description

It’s imperative that an artist sees what they’re creating.

This may sound odd but it’s not uncommon for artists to be completely blind to their work. This may sound odd but it’s not uncommon for artists to be completely blind to their work.

The reason this happens is because they’re only focused on one element of the work that they don’t see the whole.

This comprehensive course includes all you need to know for creating winning artwork.

If your art is stagnant it's probably has a lot to do with design and composition.

Module One: Simplifying Elements And Principles Of Design

This section covers all you need to know about the basics of design elements and principles. And you will learn how they translate to making quality art. It's important to establish a foundation before moving into more advanced ideas.

If you lack these with design techniques in your work then it's pointless to even pick up a paintbrush.

Module Two: In-Depth Look Into Practical Design Theory

Here you will learn how to incorporate pattern, equality, designing within the frame and a whole lot more. The lessons in this section will dramatically improve your artwork in ways you never knew existed.

There's also several complete demonstrations that illustrate how certain elements were used in a painting. So, you will see these methods in action as a painting is completed from design to finish.

Module Three: Additional Composition Knowledge

This section includes various techniques for understanding shapes within the frame. You will start to see how to organize your subjects so that they mingle well with the edges of the picture plane.

Module Five: Application Demonstrations

I’ll share some examples on how I tackled various issues when creating work from photos. In each example you’ll discover how I utilized certain composition and design elements to create a finished painting.

Having these examples will help you to see potential issues in your reference photos and save you a lot of time and money.

Who this course is for:

Beginner and Intermediate fine artists that need to develop practical design and composition skills.

Course content

4 sections • 33 lectures

Simplifying Elements & Principles Of Design 8 lectures

Element One: Shape Preview 08:30

In it's basic form there are only two types of marks you can make. Those are;

Dot - You make a dot when your pencil, pen, marker, brush or whatever you are using touches the paper and doesn't move.
Line - A line is created when you touch the paper and move it in any direction.

You can break any shape down to a line or dot. It doesn't matter if it's one of the geometric shapes, or something more complex. In the end it's a series of lines, or a dot.

You can create a shapes using two methods.

Line - by drawing a line around the shapes.
Fill - by filling the shape with a value, or color.

Shapes can be combined in two ways.

Overlap - this is when one shape sits on top of another.
Passthrough - this is when shapes are combined but without a visible intersection. So, the two shapes are joined by an outline, or fill.

There are two types of shapes.

Static - where the shape has not movement such as a dot, square, triangle, horizontal and vertical line.

Dynamic - The two types of dynamic shapes are slow and fast. Slow shapes have curves such as a wave. Fast shapes have sharp angles like mountains and light bolts.

Shapes also have;

Size - think small medium & large.

Direction - A subtle pull in one direction such as a rectangle, or tree foliage.

Demo Image Attached

Element Two: Value Preview 02:22

You can't have shape without value. And you can't have value without shape. These two are connected.
The three methods for using value to indicate a shape are:

Outline - you can indicate a shape by applying a value to the outline.
Fill - you can indicate a shape by applying a value to the fill.
Space Around It - you can indicate a shape by applying a value to the space around it.

Demo Image Attached

Element Three: Color Preview 01:37

Color can be expressed with three terms; hue, tone & chrome.

Hue is the color family.
Tone is the how light or dark the color is.
Chrome refers the how pure it is.

Note: You can lower chroma by adding gray.

Demo Image Attached

Element Four: Texture Preview 02:02

There are three types of textures you can paint. This refers to the edge of a shape. They are hard, rough & soft.

Hard textures have a very firm edge. You can think of a rock.
Rough edges have a broken appearance. Rocks can also be considered something that can be expressed with rough texture.
Soft edges are created by dissolving the edges in certain, or all, areas. A fury stuffed animal probably can be considered a soft edge object.

Demo Image Attached

Principle One: Contrast Preview 02:52

Principles of design? How you put elements together are the principles of design.

The first one we will look at is contrast. There are four types of contrast you need to know and they are value, shapes, color and texture.

Value can be used by placing light and dark values against, or near, each other.
Shapes can have contrast by placing a circle in a very rectangular design.
Color can be used by placing contrasting colors near each other.
Texture can be used by placing a hard edge object near a soft one.

Demo Image Attached

Principle Two: Dominance Preview 01:42

Dominance can be created in a variety of methods including contrast, color and shape. It's important that you achieve dominance in these areas for better designs.

Contrast dominance is created when a light, or dark value is more present than the other. Having equal parts light and dark can present a visual battle.
Color can work the same way as contrast. Always consider a dominant color for better design and avoid having equally dominant hues.
Shapes can be included in this discussion. Be sure there is a dominant shape so you avoid balance, or equality in your designs.

Demo Image Attached

Principle Three: Variety Preview 02:34

Changing the size and appearance of shapes will instantly improve designs. There are quite a few methods for adding variety but I will focus on three. They are size, shape and color.

Size is one of the common issues. Avoid having too much repetition of the same size. Use small, medium and big sizes of similar shapes.
Shapes can add variety to designs if you pay attention and observe your work as you paint. It's easy to get in a rhythm of doing the same stroke(s) over and over so try to be more aware of your shapes.
Color can add variety by using subtle tones, or tweaks as you go. Shift values and tones of the same hues to make your art interesting.

Demo Image Attached

Principle Four: Unity Preview 01:51

When the principle of unity is applied well, a design should look good overall.

It should appear as though it goes together, and it should look as though all the design elements are contributing to make a harmonious whole.

In an effective application of unity, each element enhances the others, rather than distracting from the design.

Unity through;

Color
Shape
Size
Value
And so on...

Demo Image Attached

In-Depth Look Into Practical Design Theory 9 lectures

Pattern 101 Preview 11:12

Shapes and patterns exist in your art whether you know it, or not. The real question is; do they make a good design? In this tutorial you will take basic shapes and develop them into patterns.

By start simple you can easily understand the basic idea and see how it can progress in a matter of minutes. The key is becoming aware of the ideas first and then you will have some experience as to how it applies in a painting scenario.

Demo Images Attached

Two Value Pattern Sketch Preview 08:04

A two value pattern sketch is a simple approach for understanding how your light and darks fit within the frame. It will instantly tell you how interesting, or disconnected, your shapes are and offer some solutions on how to connect them.

What you need to know

Start with your frame that has a ration you intend to use for the final work.
Now do some very simple shapes like cubes, pyramids, spheres and so on.
Be sure to only shade the areas that are in shadow.
Use two values and one being the white of the paper.
Now lightly draw your subject/shapes in a frame.
Add value to the shadow areas.
Do not include details, only main shapes.
Try to make changes if necessary that will enhance how shapes connect.

Demo Image Attached

Design Within Frame Preview 13:07

Always start with a frame. This will eliminate cropping and compressing your shapes when you transfer them to canvas, or paper.

Learn the common ratios that you work with so that you can refine your frame(s). For example I use a half sheet of paper very often that measures 15" x 22". I subtract the 1/2" border to account for the masking tape and end up with a 14" x 21". That breaks down to a 2:3 Ratio.

Eliminate cropping and compressing your ideas. As mentioned before you want to avoid altering your ideas if possible. The easiest solution is to design within common frame sizes.

Create a template for your common ratio layouts. Once you have your common sizes figured out make a template(s). One for thumbnails and another twice the size for value and composition studies. We will use this later on. Keep a master copy so you can make photocopies which will save time later on.

Be prepared at all times to thumbnail sketch and know you have a workable frame. If you followed the previous steps you should never have to worry about wasting time on designs that won't work on standard canvas and paper sizes.

Some Common Proportions

1:1 Square
1:2 10"x20" (25cm x 51cm), 12" x 24" (30cm x 61cm)
2:3 20" x 30" (51cm x 76cm), 24" x 36" (61cm x 91cm)
3:4 9"x12" (23cm x 30cm), 12"x16" (30cm x 41cm), 18"x24" (46cm x 61cm)
4:5 8"x10" (20cm x 25cm), 16" x 20" (41cm x 51cm), 24"x30" (61cm x 76cm)
5:6 10"x12" (25cm x 30cm), 20"x24" (51cm x 61cm)

Demo Images and Chart Attached

Avoid Equality Preview 12:18

Avoiding equality and symmetrical designs is easier said than done. But with some guidelines and basic understanding of common issues you will begin to construct your work with the skills of a seasoned painter.

Centered focal points are fine if you can alter the symmetry surrounding it.

Rule of thirds works just be careful not to place a counterpart on opposing intersection.

When using rule of thirds watch out for placing strong verticals and horizontals along dividing lines. Basically you want to avoid having three equal parts.

Using the large, medium and small option is a great alternative for dividing your frame. This eliminates some of the common issues that happen with the traditional rule of thirds

Demo Image Attached

Design Example Preview 09:41

In this lesson I will use a very common situation where one places the focal point directly in the center of the frame. Since this is probably the worst case scenario and presents the most problems it will be good to understand how to alter the spaces around it to create a design that's asymmetrical.

You will learn;

See how inequality works in a real design example.
Use some imagination to move some shapes and eliminate others.
Exercise the ability to use different size shapes for similar objects.
Become a detective by always looking for potential equality problems.

Demo Image Attached

Point Of View = POV Preview 11:24

In this lesson you will learn about point of view (POV). Once you have some basic knowledge of how you can easily manipulate POV your shapes can become easier to change. This allows more flexibility and range of design options.

Here are some topics we will cover;

Develop the skills needed to change the POV.
Reduce subjects to basic shapes and learn to draw them from a various POV’s.
Learn how distance allows you to crop images within the frame to create specific POV’s.
Always consider altering shapes and objects to establish the best POV.

Demo Image Attached

Lighting Preview 09:43

As with shapes, point of view and so on, you can also change lighting to satisfy your vision. With just a few tips you can easily change the time of day from morning to noon to 6 PM.

Here are some tips you will learn;

Learn the basic natural light movement.
Discover a method for adjusting light and shadow.
Apply the concept to several different time frames.

Demo Image Attached

Three Value Pattern Demo Preview 21:21

Finished Color Painting Demonstration Preview 23:19

A Look At Composition And Value Layers

Below is a breakdown of composition and design. You'll also find the patterns for white, medium and dark values. There's one with all three as well. The side-by-side will give you a look at how they design and final painting compare.

Important! I've attached five images that include various pattern sketches and a side-by-side look at the grayscale patter compared to the final painting.

Composition Basics 11 lectures

Four Most Important Compositional Lines Preview 01:02

Eight Common Armatures Preview 03:10

Horizontals And Verticals Preview 00:19

The Cruciform Preview 00:12

Creating Tension Within The Rectangle Preview 00:27

Crop For Drama Preview 00:32

Look For Value Masses Preview 00:23

Design With Rhythm Preview 00:18

Avoid Cropping Near Edges Preview 00:23

Overlapping Shapes Preview 00:15

Watch The Corners Preview 00:34

Application Examples 5 lectures

Maine Townscape Preview 04:13

In this lesson you will learn how to transform an average image into a solid composition by simply adding a few elements and a center of interest. By taking the time to compose the painting the end result is a winner.

What Was Used?

The rule of thirds
Adding a center of interest/focal point
Artistic license by adding tree, cars and enhancing foreground shadow area

How Can This Help You?

I would imaging you have plenty of images from your hometown, vacations and so on. And if they are anything like mine then they're average at best. But these average images can be transformed into fantastic paintings.

Here's your challenge:

Find an image that you like
Tweak it by adding, or subtracting certain elements
Can you apply rule of thirds, add elements, and or insert better focal point?
Now create a small composition sketch
Try a small painting to see how it works

Asset Images Attached

Sailboats Preview 03:48

In this example I used contrast, rule of thirds, and triangles to compose. Also the delicate handling of hues so that the impact was situated so that the focal point isn't obstructed.

As mentioned in the video it would have been easy to paint bright white boats. After all, that's what the photo illustrates. But knowing that bright white hues would have overpowered the red roof and sharp contrast from the house and blue water it was imperative to tone them down.

See Attached Image

Provincetown Preview 04:19

In this example it was important to address the following issues.

The car is centered left-to-right
The figures were also equally balanced left-to-right as well
The buildings needed to be included but understated

To address the issues the flooding edits were made;

The image was cropped so that the car was located in the lower left-hand quadrant
Subtracted figures on the left-hand side
Added a second car and connected shapes
Made sure all figures and elements were connected in middle ground

See Attached Image

Work Boats Preview 06:14

In this example there were quite a few changes to be made before a painting was created.

Here are the issues;

The centered needed to be removed to make the elements fit within a generic landscape style ratio.
Add some larger shapes on the right hand side to create asymmetrical composition.

The final design incorporated;

A strong focal point in the lower right-hand quadrant
Used a strong triangular shape incorporating the outriggers and reflections to create a diagonal that leads you to the focal point.
Used the sidewalk as an entry point for the viewer

Finished painting attached

Richmond - Shadows & Color Preview 06:56

In this example I will do some major cropping to create a solid painting. The key is to always find the details, shapes and/or features you like first. That will help make the edits much easier.

Here are the steps I used to make a good composition