Good composition

Here you can see the elements of a good compositional set-up. It was done by one of my students before she started her painting. There is good variety of the major things one needs to be aware of. Good tone or value variety, good differences in shapes and sizes and good colors as well! There is also a good arrangement of these shapes such as the lighter bowl against the dark rooster. If the bowl were against the background, it wouldn't show up so well since it is close in tone to the background.

Try it out without committing!

The top image is the original painting (acrylic).

It is the work of a student of mine.

If you are nearing the end of a painting and need

to try out additional elements then here is a way

to do it without putting on paint that you may have

to take off and also wreck affects that are underneath

that you like and want to preserve.

Take colored paper and cut out shapes and lay them

on the painting til you like what you have. I have

done this in two arrangements. Of course I could

have cut different shapes in different sizes, but I

think this communicates the general idea.

Composition tip

When you are arranging a still life, sometimes

there is an area in the background that is a big

blah! Lighting the set up so you can now have an

interesting shadow break up the blah space is

a simple thing to do to make it more interesing.

This is a set up arranged by one of my painting

students who has just started painting after

completing her drawing courses (line and tone

drawing).

Composing from your photos

When I see a scene that I would like to paint, I take a long shot of it, then close up shots.

The reason? Because when you photograph a long shot, there are things that are not clearly visible in the photo.

Therefore, taking closer shots of the same subject gives you more visual information.

This was a series of shots from last week when I was down viewing the

glorious cherry blossoms in

Washington, D.C.

There were families and couples everywhere, but these two were in a setting that

worked for my painting purposes!