Compose Compose Compose

composition is quite often looked over and dismissed by art novices who cant really see beyond replicating or throwing together ‘cool’ ideas. In actual fact composition is one of the most important elements to art. Guiding the viewers eye around the work, showing story, meaning and design can all be achieved by the way the work is laid out and composed. From being into art from a young age I have been taught about how pictures can be unbalanced and be ‘heavier’ in parts pulling the viewers gaze into a void of colour, this usually occurs from the lack of or over abundance of subjects in a certain side of the work, and absence for example to the left of the work would pull all the attention away and half the picture, ‘theoretically’ would not be there. One can achieve a good composition by using scenery to carefully boarder and present the focal point of the piece, this of which does not want to be too far from the centre but at the same time hardly ever right in the middle.

Since year one I have tried to achieve exciting composition in all of my pieces, from painting through an archway to using vanishing points to guide the viewer’s attention to where I want it to go.

When working on imaginered work you can use everything you know and see in other work taken from real subjects. Artistic eye is important for seeing what will work best without exact reference, and knowing how things should behave. Work should always be self critiqued and analyzed every step of the way until the final piece is exactly what you wanted, most pictures are not the artists first attempt of the one piece but most likely a final comprised of tests and experiments to see what works best and using their artistic judgment to correct what they see. This is especially important when working in 3d because even when you have the reference it is hard to view exactly what you want to view and it takes a lot of judgement to fill in the gaps left by the 2d references you have at hand, this can be down to logical reasoning or true understanding of the subject both of which should be practiced and incorporated into your work. I have found this useful when doing this years 3D design, especially the self portrait, there are a lot of places you cant see or get a good picture of and it is down to anatomical understanding and judgment that helps fill those spaces and achieve something that looks viable and something you can be proud of.