Do you ever struggle with water that seems to fall right off the canvas? It’s frustrating to have a brilliantly painted ship with areas of water looks as if they are sloping or, at least not level. Here is some advice for how you can stop water looking as if it is falling away in one direction or
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The purpose of a curving path for the viewer’s eye is to enlarge the space inside the painting and create visual interest. The sketch below shows how the curving shape of foam can help create an interesting composition.
The triangle composition works for several reasons. One reason is that it contains an odd number of supporting points. Our minds tend to find even numbers and formal symmetry more mundane than odd numbers and uneven spaces. It likely is related to the balance we truly experience in life. For example, a cone seems much
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One basic form of composition separates one vertical side and one horizontal side from the rest of the painting. This shape is similar to the letter “L” so why not call it that. The reason this kind of composition works well is because it is not formally symmetrical and so it follows the rules of
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Balance is the proper distribution of color, value, and size weights in a painting. See some more in-depth discussions on calor and value in the color section! To achieve informal balance (the most interesting kind), these should not be even or else we would violate our compositional rule of even numbered or even proportioned pieces.
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Lines and shapes should not be left alone. Create paths, fill up the painting, and connect stranded objects. This sounds trivial, but it’s hard to realize sometimes and depends on good analysis of the scene you intend to paint. This sketch is only a basic example of how objects in a scene can be chosen
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Lines are certainly created by the long strokes in a painting. However, lines are also created by the outlines of shapes and positions of shapes relative to each other. The idea of creating interesting paths with diagonal and curved lines does apply to the entire painting, but lines in general can help to create the
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Linear perspective is created with vanishing points – a point at which all parallel lines converge – even though we have nothing long enough to actually see this occur, it is part of how we experience the world. The wonderful thing about vanishing points is that they provide one way of creating a three dimensional
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Focus is something we have to consider because it helps to make a painting interesting. The focus is the area of a painting which is meant to draw significant attention, and there can be more than one in a complex piece. A focus can be created by using detail, color, direction, and value. Value is
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