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.

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 :)

Wanton and Wild Creativity

With Hallowe'en approaching and the fall leaves in the air, my brain has been working overtime with creative ideas!  This has been both a positive and a negative.  I believe that any creative idea is a good one as it helps to exercise a very important part of the brain.  The trouble comes (for me anyway) when I have so many ideas that it seems like I am surrounded by a thousand butterflies and I just want to catch one, without breaking it!

Usually when this happens to me I do one of two things: I either frantically grab at whatever's closest and easiest and then ruin it, or I do nothing and am disappointed.  Well, actually either way I'm disappointed.  Whenever I grab at something I tend towards the project that's been bugging me the most.  Something that I should take my time over and think about.  But instead I do a half-bummed job of it and end up frustrated and disappointed.

I guess the trick needs to be to find a way to channel all that creative energy into a really great project.  Instead of trying to catch one butterfly in a swarm of one thousand that all look alike, to see where the most unique butterfly is.  It may not even be in that swarm you are focusing on.  I don't catch butterflies, as a rule.  I prefer to watch them from a distance.  But I do know that any time you want to catch something precious, it's best to find one that's a bit more isolated from the crowd.  Unless you're eating it of course, then it shouldn't matter, but I digress...

So, you can guess from all this rambling that I haven't started a new project yet.  I have been very productive doing sorting and organizing, collecting, cleaning and storing.  But no real project just yet.  I wonder how others deal with this type of thing.  Has it ever happened to you?  Please tell me I'm not alone in this!!