Painting - Composition
As artists, we are responsible for moving the viewer through the picture. Failure to do this well will always result in mediocre pictures.
The brain filters out huge chunks of the data coming in through our visual sense A critical job of the artist is to do this filtering action for his viewer, presenting them with a predetermined journey through the painting.
That "journey" is what is primarily created when we correctly use composition in our pictures.
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| "Riverside Reflections" (8x12) by M Francis McCarthy |
That "journey" is what is primarily created when we correctly use composition in our pictures.
Much of what we do as artists in this regard is intuitive. We just know when it feels right. Much also can be learned by studying the paintings of artists you admire. Far less is graspable when you read about the subject in books.
There are some great books on composition one I love is by Edgar Payne Composition of Landscape Painting. Another I've been trying to read is Composing Pictures by Donald Graham, I just scanned a review of this on Amazon an that review wasn't feeling it either.
From my experience the best way to learn about good composition is to do a lot of paintings. As you do these paintings try to remember that a path must be mapped by you through each work you create.
I'm going to mention using photography as a major area of potential concern at it pertains to composition.
Speaking from experience, though you can utilize composition skills when shooting your reference material, you are still just flattening raw nature.
A painting must be composed. mimicry and rote copying of nature results in paintings, but many times they will be hit or miss unless the reference photo has been re invented. To do this the limitations of the photo must be overcome by direct intervention from the imagination of the artist.
Cheers,
A bit about "Riverside Reflections". This is a recent painting thats made it through my recent repainting cull without being reworked. There is much I love about "Riverside Reflections" and somethings I'd rethink when revisiting this motif.
Over all, the painting has the quiet feeling of twilight that I was after and exhibits a nice luminescent quality. It's currently hanging at the Yvonne Rust Gallery located at the Quarry Arts Center in Whangarei California.
Website Update
I've been working super hard on updating my website as I mentioned in previous posts here.
Still a few niggling, odd errors but over all it's been nicely updated. I've managed to link Google docs with an inventory/pricelist that's got to be typed in.
I worked with Net object fusion for years and then Adobe Dream Weaver. Must say I hated Dreamweaver. Ezgenerator is much simpler to use and suits an artists temperament. It has many good templates and even more crappy ones but I manage to get a good result generally.
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| Still Pond by M Francis McCarthy |
Technology is getting more awesome each day really. BTW the program I use for my web site is Ezgenerator. From their site:
EZGenerator is a combination offline Website builder and online content management system.
Create the structure of your website offline, add pages, blogs and other features then upload it and continue to edit ‘live’ content online.
Easily create a website without installing any other software on your PC or server, EZGenerator does all the hard work for you and set-up everything you need to have online
I worked with Net object fusion for years and then Adobe Dream Weaver. Must say I hated Dreamweaver. Ezgenerator is much simpler to use and suits an artists temperament. It has many good templates and even more crappy ones but I manage to get a good result generally.
Here's a few sites I've done with Ezgenerator: