Preparing a Composition - in 8 steps

In continuance with my earlier post regarding Ian Roberts' book "Mastering Composition", I wanted to lay out the steps of creating a finished composition both to formalize it in my mind and to share it with others.  You may want to grab a coffee or something, this may take a bit of time.

1) So, let's say you want to do a painting/drawing/etc.  What's the first thing you do?  I'm pretty sure it will be to choose your subjects.  Will it be a still-life/portrait/landscape?  Will it be from a reference photo or from life?  etc, etc...  Okay, you've answered these questions and prepared your subject.  Now what?

For an example, I'm going to use this frog clip art image.  Isn't he cute?!

2) The very next thing that should happen is deciding what size the final piece will be.  This is important because when you start your thumbnail sketch, you will need to know the proportions for each side of the thumbnail.  Otherwise you get a great thumbnail that you can't transfer properly to your final medium because the proportions are all wrong (trust me people this is very frustrating!).  So, taking the final piece dimensions, determine the dimensions required of the thumbnail sketch.

Now, there are going to be about 3 stages of drawing here, so stay with me.

3) Lay out the dimensions of the thumbnail sketch on a piece of paper or sketchbook.  It shouldn't be too large, but also it shouldn't be too small.  Start at around 2:3 to begin at first, adjust these dimensions accordingly for your finished piece.

4) Using a light touch with the pencil, divide the square/rectangle into 9 even squares (think tic-tac-toe board).  This "grid of thirds" is an important component for composition.  It allows a natural and pleasing arrangement of your subject to the final work and provides 36 reference points.  It also helps to align things up vertically and horizontally, as well as providing a simple means for finding angles easily.




When laying out your drawing, try to think in terms of composition.  What shape armature will you be using?  How will the focal point stand out?  How will you draw the viewer's eye to the focal point?

5) Now it's time to lay in your subjects onto the grid.  Try not to be  too detailed at this stage.  Just rough in the shapes, proportions, and angles.  Now, work in the values - keeping in mind that your primary subject/focal point should have the most dramatic contrast (lightest lights and darkest darks), while the surroundings should have less contrast.

                                                                                     

                   
                                                 

                                                                                                           
6) Take a step back and look at your thumbnail sketch.  Is the image appealing?  Do the shapes draw your eye?  If not, it's just a thumbnail, try again but change some element.  If your first attempt was a landscape/horizontal orientation, try again in a portrait/vertical orientation.  Try placing the focal point somewhere on or very close to the innermost square/rectangle on your grid of thirds.  Zoom in.  Zoom out.  Simplify.  I think you get the idea.

7) When you have a successful thumbnail sketch, it's time to translate that into a drawing with details.  Get yourself a piece of sketch paper (it doesn't have to be fancy, even computer paper will do).  Enlarge the dimensions of the thumbnail sketch appropriately to the sketch paper.  Copy your image, this time adding any of the minor details you left out of the thumbnail sketch.  Use your grid of thirds to help transfer the image accurately.  Be sure to keep the values from the thumbnail sketch for your drawing.

                            



You may find this step more challenging than the thumbnail sketch.  I find that sometimes it takes me a few tries to get the dimensions right with a bigger picture.  Pencil lightly so you can erase easily, start over if you have to (I know I have).  Okay, great - you now have a map for your finished piece!  The majority of the hard work is done, it's time now to play in your favourite medium to create your piece.

8) By whatever means you are most comfortable, transfer your image to the canvas/paper/etc.  If you need to enlarge it from your sketch, try another grid of thirds, or if it's the exact right size, use a lightbox/window to transfer it directly.  Block in your large colours/values first (obviously this would go a little differently if you're working in water-colour, so adjust this accordingly).  Slowly build up your colour/value layers to the detail point, all the time following your map.


                                              
                                                                                           
It's important to stay alert and focused in this step.  It can be very easy to let the mind relax and just go through the motions, but that's when mistakes happen and you can't always correct them easily.  Pause every so often to step back and check your progress against your map.  Hopefully though, everything has gone very well and you have a finished piece that you can be proud of!
  




I know that this is a lot of steps.  And I'm sure you shook your head at me a few times and said "But I just want to paint!".  Believe me, I'm with you.  This is a LOT of work, and there are times when you can just go play with your paints and see what comes out.  Experiment, have fun.  But there are also times when you'd like to do something a little more formal.  Something that reflects your skill and talent for any viewer to see.  That's when these steps become important.  And the good news is, if you like the final result, you can easily try another painting of the same subjects with different colours, or colour relationships because you already have a map laid out and ready to go!

If you're having difficulty working with these steps, I highly recommend Ian Roberts' idea of "A Composition A Day".  I've been doing it for a week or so now and it's really helped me see the steps more clearly and better understand my options (which seem infinite) and how to use them.

If you have any questions or comments about these steps I'd love to hear from you :)

An Interesting Issue

I ran into an interesting situation the other day that I feel the need to talk about.  It occurs to me that today's technology is having an unusual impact on people, that I'm not sure everyone has thought about.

Before I start, I just want to say that I don't consider myself to be "techy" (is that a word?).  I mean to say that I don't go out and buy the latest and greatest technology; I don't own a tablet, my smartphone is only moderately intelligent, I don't own the latest gaming system or even the newest games.  I try to keep my life simple, with as few complications as possible which is why until recently I haven't even been using many apps (either on my phone or my computer).

That being said, I never thought that I spent that much time typing or using my fingers/hands in a strictly technological way.  However, because my study-style requires me to hand-write my notes, I noticed that my muscles distinctly had something to say about using them in this new way.  I was not expecting to wake up the other morning with a sore hand because it was not used to writing.  How weird is that?!  How many of you have noticed something similar?  I'm sure this is an age-dependant question these days.  Anyone born prior to the '90s likely understand this better than those born after.  So to those born before 1990, have you noticed how little actual hand-writing you do in a day anymore?

It's not surprising after this to learn that schools are looking at removing learning how to write (draw letters, etc) from the curriculum.  I believe the last article I read about the subject was that schools were looking to remove "writing", but still keeping "printing".  This seems to me to be a strange concept to wrap my head around.  I guess "writing" would become one of those skills you'd need to take a special interest class in - like calligraphy, or stained-glass making.

I haven't decided if this is a good or bad thing, or if it's just a reflection of societal and technological advancement, but it hit me in a "how weird is that" kind of way.  I grew up with the primary method of written communication being hand-written and it was important that it be legible to others, so regular practice was paramount.  I have two young children and it feels strange to think that while they will likely learn more in school than I did, but also that what they learn could make what I learned to be antiquated.  Is hand-writing going to become similar to using data cards to program computers?

Spending a day with a hot pack around my hand was definitely surreal.

Mastering Composition

Have you ever had a painting that was so frustrating to work with you just wanted to give up?  Did you in fact give up with a frustrated scream?  Have you ever worked on a piece for HOURS only to find out at the end that you hated it?  I have to say that I feel your pain.  I hate when I've worked on what seemed like a very promising piece for hours, or even days, to come out at the end with something that just lacked.  The colours were great, the value scale was awesome, the details were perfect, but still it lacked.  What a waste of time/energy/supplies!!!  I don't know about you, but this sort of thing drives me bonkers!

Well, it may be that what you need is a polish on your composition skills.  As I mentioned in my last post, I am working hard studying the various aspects of artistry.  One of the things I'm studying is a book by Ian Roberts called "Mastering the Art of Composition".  An excellent book, by the way, I highly recommend it.

In this book he talks about the aspects required in design and composition of art.  What grabs your attention from across the room when you look a piece of art?  Is it the subject matter?  Not likely, as you probably can't quite see it.  Is it the colours?  Again not likely as they probably blend together a bit with distance.  It could be the value contrasts, and/or the arrangement of the value shapes within the piece.  I am simplifying here, after all, it takes Mr Roberts a whole book to explain this well.

He also talks about how composition and design have to be the FIRST things you think about, even before you start painting.  If your composition is poor, nothing you do in painting (colour, value, intensity) will correct it and make it a good painting (sound familiar?).

He discusses the use of certain tools, like a viewfinder (he even describes how to make a pretty cool one yourself with some card and acetate), a grid of thirds, a thumbnail sketch, and a perceptional shift to see in value masses, not details.  He advises studying paintings you like, that grab your attention, to learn what the artist did and improve your own compositions.  Using paintings by the Old Masters (who had much fewer tools to work with than we do today) to discover how they achieved so much with so little.

Above all, Mr Roberts recommends doing "A Composition a Day" for a year or so.  These should be small (4" x 5"), in pencil (say B, 2B, 4B) and use objects that are around you in your life.  He compares it to practicing the scales on a piano every day.  Nothing too drastic - keep it simple.  If you work attentively and with purpose, daily for a year, you will see a dramatic improvement in your compositions - or so he says anyway.  I intend to find out for myself and have started today with my first (hopefully of many) composition sketch.

 This is my setup.  I picked some toys from the girls that were simple shapes.  He also advised that an object in space alone is not a composition.  It's important to have a background to relate the objects to/with.  Many of his examples showed a light and dark divided background, so I picked a black sketch book and a white binder for mine.  My light source is single (mostly - I tried to ignore the light coming from the window on the left as it wasn't strong enough) and coming from the right.

And this is my composition sketch using the 3 recommended pencils.  I can't say how well I followed Mr. Roberts' direction, but I think I did OK for my first attempt.  It didn't take too long either - I'd say about 30 min from setup to finished drawing.  The hard part was squinting to see the value masses and eliminate the detail from my setup.  White objects would work better I suspect.  I look forward to continuing this exercise tomorrow.

I'm not quite finished reading his book yet, only about halfway really.  But so far it's been a highly educational read and I can see that if i stick to it, how my art will improve.

The art of studying

I've been hitting the books pretty hard the last week or so.  I'm learning about composition, negative painting, setting up an online store (website), and marketing strategies for artists.  It's so much information in fact, that I'm having absolutely no time to do anything art related (even sketching)!  Add to this the Christmas season is upon us and forget about it :P  I have so many ideas jumping in my head, from drawings, paintings, learnings, gifts, gifts to make, supplies to get, that my head is spinning!!

Don't get me wrong, I'm loving all the stuff I'm learning, but I find it hard to switch gears from reading and making notes, to being creative.  It's ironic isn't it, considering that what I'm learning should improve my ability to be creative?!  I'm not sure why it is, especially as the books, etc I'm learning from all keep pushing for the reader to practice, try it out, work it through, etc.

Maybe it's because I'm learning from home, working at my own pace.  I want to get all the information in before I sit down and try to apply it.  Sounds kinda backwards doesn't it?  Ah well, you've pretty much summed me up right there :)

Anyway, I have so much stuff that I'm learning and that I REALLY want to share with you!  This may take a few more weeks, but I promise to send out some interesting information your way soon.

Happy creating!

Learning about colour from Linda Kemp: Intensity

Painting to create contrast by colour intensity is a more challenging concept for a watercolorist, or at least it goes against everything I've ever learned about painting in watercolour!  The one thing every  watercolorist is terrified of is creating MUD!!  This can happen in so many different ways, but it's generally a result of using too many different colours in the painting.  Sticking to a few pure colours reduces the risk of mud and keeps the painting vibrant.

However, as Ms Kemp points out, a painting done with contrast by colour intensity can have a softness and elegance to it that a more colourful, value contrast painting won't have.  

Intensity contrast comes about when an artist takes advantage of complementary colour relationships.  These are the colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel.  When these colours are mixed, they create a neutral colour (also known as mud, grey, dull, etc).

In this example, I followed Ms Kemp and painted pure orange, then mixed very small amounts of blue to gradually create a firm neutral colour (neither orange or blue).

With this in mind, I followed along and created this painting.  Again, the point is to have the contrast be a result of the intensity of the colour, not any dramatic changes in value.

I'm not sure I got the exact right shade for my neutral, but I think it still works.  The orange and green stand out very well without the neutral colour being too dark.

I found this to be the most challenging of the three concepts to work with, but I also think that I can better appreciate paintings that have been done this way.  I know I used to look at paintings that were done only in neutrals with some hints of pure colour here and there, and wonder why - what was the point.  But now I have a better understanding of what the artist was trying to do and why.  

The trick with this type of colour relationship I think, is to find an appropriate means of using it.  That's probably the trickiest part about it.

Well, this was the last colour relationship in Ms Kemp's workshop and I definitely learned a lot!  I found that she broke it down very nicely and easily conveyed each concept.  If you haven't read my previous posts on Value and Hue, just go to my blog page - they were all posted very close together.

Learning about colour from Linda Kemp: Hue

Today I followed Ms Kemp as she introduced to me the concept of contrast by hue (or colour).  Basically by this she means following the colour wheel in analogous colours, creating contrast by the hue.  Analogous colours are those that are beside each other on the colour wheel and as such are related.  The nice thing about working with analogous colours is that you can't create mud, or neutrals by accident because all the colours are related.

To create a contrast painting by hue, it's important to remember that colours at the top of the colour wheel are lighter by nature (yellow) than those at the bottom of the colour wheel (red, blue, violet), but also the range of value does not go as far as with a value scale and will tend to stay in the mid-ranges.

Following along with Ms Kemp, I created 2 analogous paintings; one using warm colours (yellow, orange, orange-red,  and red), and one using cool colours (yellow, yellow-green, blue-green, and blue).

Unfortunately the camera washed out the yellow in my warm painting, but I think you still get the idea. Both paintings were done completely wet-in-wet, with LOTS of pure paint loaded on the brush.  The shapes don't really matter here, the idea was to learn the principle.  If you're thinking that the cool painting looks a bit more like a value painting - I have to agree with you.

Here I placed my value finder directly on top of the painting to see just how far the value range went.  From the scale, I think the yellow likely represents a value 9 (very light), and the blue looks to be around value 2 (very dark).  To me this was not a correct representation of a painting with hue contrast which should have a much smaller range of value contrast, so I decided to try again.

The only thing I really changed was the type of blue I used.  I went from cobalt blue (who knew it was that dark?), to phthalo blue which has some white in it.  Please forgive the rectangles in the background - I used a piece of watercolour paper that I had used before, just painted on the back.  I guess it shows through :P

Here are the two paintings right next to each other.  You can see that the one using the phthalo blue has got much less of a value contrast than the one on the bottom with the cobalt blue.

This was a very fun exercise and super quick to boot!  I can't wait to try this out in a painting!!

Learning about Colour from Linda Kemp: Value

In my never-ending quest to improve my skills, I started following colour-theory lessons by Linda Kemp, a renowned and well established artist.  I know, I know, "Colour theory...ewww how boring!".  I can't agree more!  I also find the topic incredibly terrifying!  There seems to be no end to the rules and arrangements of how and when to use colour.  However, the title of Ms Kemp's video "Simplifying Color" does give me a sense of hope that I may be able to finally grasp this usually very dull topic :)

She's approached this subject very systematically, which I appreciate.  The video starts out by outlining the 3 properties of colour: Intensity, Value, and Hue.

You can see in this strip that Intensity contrast is when you contrast a pure colour with a neutral colour, thereby making the pure colour stand out.  Value contrast is when you paint from the lightest light to the darkest dark (here the orange is lighter than the black).  And Hue contrast is when you paint contrasting colours (i.e. orange and blue) to make either or both stand out.

In this post I will be focusing on my work following her Value contrast lesson. 

First, it was important that I understand the relationship between light and dark values.  Similar to a black/white value finder, I followed along to create a gradation of values using only water to change the colour.  I'm not sure I succeeded too well here, as I seem to have a lot of gradations that are very similar in the lighter values, but hey, I tried!

Next I was to learn the difference between "low key" and "high key" paintings.  Low key paintings use values ranging from mid to high (very light/white), while High key paintings use values ranging from mid to dark (black).  I think I did okay representing the high key values, but the low key values gave me some trouble.  I'm not sure if they were supposed to have more blue in them to increase their value levels or if I was supposed to keep the colours pure and specifically choose ones that would have a high value level.

Now onto the fun part :). 

To illustrate her point, Ms. Kemp chose to demonstrate how to paint a value contrast painting (following is my attempts to follow along).  The really fun aspect to this demonstration is that Ms. Kemp LOVES to work in the negative.  This generally means that instead of painting the shape directly (i.e. a circle), you paint everything else in the space EXCEPT the shape and voila, your shape appears!  You'll get a better idea of what I mean if you follow along :)

First I drew some flower shapes on a piece of watercolour paper.  Then, selecting a colour that could easily go from lightest light to darkest dark, I painted around each flower shape in the lightest value of the colour.

Next, when the paper was completely dry, I drew in some stems for each flower and mixed a slightly darker value of the colour.  Then I carefully painted around ALL the drawn shapes.

After the paint had dried completely, I drew in some leaves and a few more stems.  I mixed an even darker value of the colour and repeated my painting around the shapes.  At this stage, smaller "captured negative" spaces have been created that must be painted properly or it all falls apart.  You see the tiny dark green spaces between the flower stems in the upper-middle?  Those are captured negatives.

This was by far the coolest step for me.  I have always been told that in watercolour you MUST NOT ever use white or black, and I gotta say that this has been darned inconvenient at times!  But Linda has generously given permission to use these values to mix with colours to aid in creating the values necessary.  In this case, I mixed some black in with my green paint to create the darkest value.  I drew in a few more leaves and painted around everything accordingly.

It's really important when painting like this that I take a step back periodically to see all the shapes and how they join, and where their spaces are.  I came very close a few times to completely messing up the exercise by painting the wrong thing!

While I can't say the painting itself is incredible, you definitely get the idea of what a value contrast painting should look like.  Now, there's nothing saying that you have to do this process in the order presented here.  Depending on your preferred methods, you could probably mask out the white flowers, leaves and stems and start dark, lifting mask and painting lighter as you progress.  This would be an example of painting in the positive.

I plan to continue the video and present my efforts in my next post.  Wish me luck!

New Art Supplies!

I don't know about you, but I LOVE getting things in the mail - especially when it's art supplies that I've been anxiously waiting for!!!

So guess what?!  My order from Jerry's Artarama came in!!  I now have my very own gray scale and value finder, erasing shield, and proportional divider.  Theoretically, I should now be able to do much more accurate drawings (like portraits, etc) and paintings.  Now I just have to figure out how to use these fancy gadgets :)

Guilt, stress, and getting back into art

What emotionally fragile creatures we artist’s can be.

I have spent the last week suffering from stress and guilt - all studio related.  For almost a week I have not been able to get my foot in the door of my studio (which is quite a feat since it’s the spare bedroom right across from the master bedroom).  I have struggled with myself trying to discover the whys and potential workarounds: taking a sketchbook out of the room, reading up on getting back into art, trying to figure out why I can‘t get back in there.

The sketchbook thing didn’t really work.  For one day it worked just fine.  I managed a bit of sketching, laying out some future painting/drawing ideas and trying out some thoughts in general.  But after that hour or so, the sketchbook pretty much didn’t move from the coffee table.  Even though I had everything I needed in the room, I just couldn’t go any further.

I went to the internet for some much needed advice.  I hit on a few sites that basically said the same thing:

     1)    Buy a new (fun/pleasing) sketchbook

     2)   Spend 15 min everyday doing something creative  

     3)   Find inspiration (visit galleries, read books, watch DVDs)

None of these options really worked for me.  First, I have WAYYY too many supplies to justify buying one more sketchbook.  My sense of fiscal responsibility completely rebelled at the idea.  So that was out.

As I noted above, spending 15 minutes everyday drawing/sketching/painting won’t work either.  I can’t even put myself in my studio for 5 minutes and bringing my sketchbook out didn’t work either.

Examples for finding inspiration I have actually done.  I spent a lot of time watching DVDs, reading books and checking out finished work on the internet.  I did get a stirring of inspiration for techniques and supply, but nothing lasting or strong enough to get me working.

So.  When all else fails, what do you do?  Time to think back to my last full attempt in my studio.  What happened then?  If I remember correctly my last real attempt in the studio was when I tried out that new technique using charcoal to make a painting plan.  My first try was a fantastic success of an image of my daughter playing at the creek. 

My second attempt was disasterous!   What felt like a wonderfully successful portrait turned into the biggest horror story I’ve had in a long time.   In fact, the drawing is still in there, mounted on the drawing board and turned away so I won’t have to look at it every time I pass the studio….I may have figured out my problem…

Okay, so step one, get rid of that horrendous drawing!  Done.  A bit of tidying up and the room looks ready to come into.  With a big sigh of relief, I pulled out an old line drawing idea of a farm I did many years ago, a sheet of newsprint, and the charcoal stick.  Even though my last attempt with charcoal turned out so badly, I was still impressed enough with the technique to want to try again.  I didn’t go as dark this time, and I only put down enough to get the general idea in.

With that done, I had a brief inspiration to do a floral in the same manner.  I was really drawn to doing a sunflower image, but since I don’t have an sunflower to work from I pulled out some fakes to try.  I set up a container and some light and started sketching.

I think I worked in the room for about 45 minutes, with about 35 minutes of total drawing time.  I decided to quit when I was starting to feel tired and frustrated with the sunflowers.  Best to end on a high note :)

Only time will tell if I fixed the problem and can once again live guilt free and productive in my studio, but hopefully I’ve found the solution, at least until the next disaster :)