Composition: The Bare Basics

Composition is how the forms of the painting are structured. I'm not going to get into detailed instruction in this post. Composition could fuel the creation of a blog dedicated to the subject. Indeed, several books have been written solely on the principles of composition. The subject of composition is bound to recur in this blog. My goal here is to give you just a few basic guidelines.

One thing to remember when disussing composition is that its rules are rooted in sensory perception. Think about vision. Distant objects appear much smaller than they are. For example, a nearby tree is likely to painted larger than a distant mountain.

Overlapping creates the illusion of distance. A landscape without overlapping elements is likely to appear flat. Instead, think of the canvas as divided horizontally into thirds: background, middle ground, and foreground. Mentally dividing the canvas into thirds is called the rule of thirds. It is a guideline that helps artists judge composition ideas. When painting, the objects ithe background are painted first, followed by the middle ground, then the foreground. Objects in the middle ground overlap the background. Objects in the foreground may overlap both the middle ground and the background. The horizon should never fall across the center of the painting. Instead, it should be closer to one of the lines of thirds.

Imagine a simple still life painting containing a bottle and three pieces of fruit. Suppose the fruit and bottle were all against the left side of the canvas. The painting would end up looking extremely lopsided. The canvas may be visualized as being divided into three equal columns to help and artist judge the balance between the left column and right column.

Light and shading help the painting appear three dimensional. Visualize the light source. The sides of objects that are opposite of the light source need to be shaded. Shadows may be cast as well. Parts of objects that are directly in line with the light source may need to be highlighted.

Keep the viewer's perspective in mind. For example, painting a small animal or child from above may give the illusion that it is from a adult's perspective and could also encourage a sense of the subject's vulnerability or weakness. Painting such a subject from a low angle gives the illusion of importance or power. No perspective is wrong, unless it elicits feelings that are contrary to the feelings that the artist wants to invoke.

A goal of the painting is to attract and keep the viewer's attention on the painting. Therefore, if objects in the painting lead the viewer's attention away from the center of the painting, something should be drawing attention back toward the center or focal points. The focal point is part(s) of the painting where the artist wants most of the viewers' attention to be directed. When artists take the time to decide on the focal point for the painting, they can arrange the other elements of the painting to draw attention to the focal point.