[Lunatique]

I think this is worth discussing, but where I posted it, no one will ever notice. So, I'm going to put it in a thread of its own. Let's get the ball rolling!

The original thread: http://www.sijun.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=001496

If you want a whole book on composition, I don't think I've seen any. There are books that include a chapter on composition though.

There is one very basic and simple rule of composition:

Take a blank page and divide it into 4 equal spaces(2 across, 2 up and down). Now, the simple rule is, your main area of focus should fall in two of the best possible area on a page: 1)somewhere within or close to one of the 4 spaces. 2)Dead center.

Now, dead center works for certain types of work, but usually, the most interesting compositions have their main focus in one of the 4 corners.

Here's an example of weak composition. Let's say you are doing a space scene. Having all the elements of your piece in the center is very boring. Your eyes don't get to bounce around the picture and get challenged. None of the lines, angles, curves or spaces leads your eyes anywhere.


This is a much better composition. The areas of focus makes you look at the whole picture from one corner to another. There's weight to the areas of focus because they offset the negative space in other corners.



Think also of intersecting lines, angles, and negative space.

This first one is very dead. There arent' any interesting intersection lines or angles.


Now, you have more movement in the spacing of these objects. The lines, angles and curves lead your eyes to bounce around.


I don't have to much time to get into hyper detailed discussions in composition. Most of what I know is really just instinctive, since I've never gone to art school. But, these rule apply to all areas of art and design. Whether you are doing a portrait, web design, illustration, comics..etc, these general rules of composition will always apply. All of these ideas could be applied to organic subjects as well. The parts of the human body(or animal), shape of clouds, mountains, planets, furniture..etc, they are all similar to basic geometric shapes(or combinations of), with lines, curves, and angles. Think of them that way and you'll be improving in your composition in no time. Make several versions of rough sketches with different composition, and pick one that is the strongest.


Artist to look at for excellent composition:

Michael Whelan--even his sketches and color comps display mastery of composition. He really knows how to balance his spaces and use very effective values.

Artist to look at for very poor composition:

Jim Burns-- His recent works are better, but until the recent years, his composition was very poor and uninteresting. Not only that, his colors and values were pretty scary as well. This, of course excludes the pieces when he obviously used photo references heavily.

Hope this helped.

[burn0ut]

oh yea i checked out Michael Whelan his values are badass.

[Lunatique]

Wow. I can't believe this. We used to have all kinds of awesome discussions and sharing of knowledge here. What's hapened to this place?!

[J Bradford]

Hey, im not out of the discussion here. I think this is quite interesting, much like you, it's really been a sort of instict for me. My art professors discussed some of this in general, but never provided pictures to accompany what they were saying.

It makes sense in a big way, such as how most people do not do portraits from a direct front view (symetrical, boring), but rather from an angle.

I think as you progress more as an artist with practice, you gradually leave the field of bad composition. Im sure if you pointed it out to a number of good artists, they would simply say "Hmm, yeah I never realized that" since it is more of an instictive quality. Unless of course you lack any perception of composition, then it should have to be pointed out.

[Steven Stahlberg]

I started a thread a couple months ago about this, where I rambled on about my own thinking on the subject, I'm not even entirely sure I managed to make myself fully understood, even to those few in the discussion who actually agreed with me...

But from what I see here Lunatique, you seem to be roughly on the same track I was on. I think the human brain either follows edges or 'connects the dots', steering the eyes around the image in an incredibly complex dance of automatics and feedback from different levels of the system. It makes us feel good on a very deep level when the dance moves in certain ways, which of course I can't define very clearly since there are so many variables and I've got no budget to perform double-blind experiments on large cross-sectional samples of the population.

I kinda came from an evolutionary point of view, wondering why we like certain images more than others, theorizing that understanding the basic reasons might provide further understanding of exactly what is 'good' composition to us. But then of course people started saying that you can't quantify what makes a good image good, that it's too individual, or that it's simply "art" and as such basically can't be scientifically understood... arguments like that make me suspicious, sounds an awful lot like what people were saying about the world in the middle ages. How can we be sure it can't be known, if we don't even try?

There must be an evolutionary reason right?
Any recurring feature or attribute of life on earth must have such a reason, after all these billions of years of polishing.

For instance, we like edges because our vision is edgebased - on the smallest level, each group of cones and rods work together like a Photoshop sharpening filter to amplify any edges that it comes across.
This would explain why we think cartoons and line drawings are so cool, even though nothing like them exist in nature.

[quaternius]

Composition is always a good subject for discussion!
Lunatique - there are a few decent books on the subject...there's more, but thos're out of print and very hard to find.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1929834098/qid=996033932/sr=2-1/103-2468259-1377411
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/048626856X/qid=996034712/sr=1-1/ref=sc_b_1/103-2468259-1377411
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0486233588/ref=sim_books/103-2468259-1377411

This one is one of the "bibles" of composition - but I think the old-fashioned language and layout makes it a tougher read than more modern texts. Still, if you really want to learn more about composition this book should be on your required reading list. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0520207491/ref=sim_books/103-2468259-1377411

[Viridae]

Wow, very informative little article you have there. I don't really have much to add as yours was more of a study for me.

[Collosimo]

Nice thread.

I am a student graphic designer. I am constantly challenged with compositional problems and innovation.

"This is a much better composition. The areas of focus makes you look at the whole picture from one corner to another. There's weight to the areas of focus because they offset the negative space in other corners."

Negative space:

Firstly, the significance of the negative spaces. I would like to highlight this aspect of composition and discuss it further.

Negative space can be just as important as the positive space (objects of focus). The focal points, areas of interest, and those with visual weight, are more commonly than not, reinforced by clever use of negative spaces.

Check this.



Ignore the factor of typography, instead notice how powerful the second one becomes. The negative space, the distance of blankness reinforces the visual weight of the 'N', and its obvious 'isolation'.



This image emphasises some other aspects of negative space. We commonly associate the circles as foreground, and the white space as the background, or negative space.

Notice that some of the circles are not wholly visible. How do we know they are circles though? Because of the lack of maybe half of the circle or more, we use two indicators, to portion of the circle showing, and the negative space surrounding that helps to suggest a continuing shape.

Another aspect. Notice that as the negative space shrinks, and the is less of it. It can actually be very powerfull. The two circles that are just touching. The fact that the negative space narrows down until it dissapears, has a strong influence on the interest that those two cirlces draw.

Also notice how the white space surrounding the smallest circle helps to show just how small that cirlce is. I intentionally placed it, so that it it had some breathing room from anything else. That breathing room, or negative space as you can see is quite effective in that sense. I also placed it in the same locality as the largest circle for comparison (something else to think about!).

There are also some areas of negative space that narrow then widen again. These negative shapes are very powerful because they are like a junction of contrast and focus that crams inward then explodes outward.

Just some things to think about.... Don't forget negative spaces!

[bobtema]

Building on the method of dividing the page into 4 equal parts, you can also practice creating good compositions by placing 5 equal squares on the page. Without tilting or overlapping the squares, just arrange and rearrange the items, to experiment with compostion. This strips composition down to a most basic exercise.

[Pat]

Hrm.... was I the only one who learned about the "Rule of Thirds?" What are they teaching in art schools these days?

-Pat

[burn0ut]

teach us then pat

[Lunatique]

Yeah, Pat. Share. Show n' tell time!

Collosimo- Hey, nice one! Very effective examples!

I've got a funny story about negative spaces:

My brother worked in graphic design and advertising for a bit. For one of the ads, he used a composition that relied heavily on the effectiveness of negative space. The focus point in the ad was very tiny, but when you do spot it on the page, it makes you go, "ah...!"

So, his client, this unartistic, money-grubbing, unimaginative executive type person, comes to see the ad for final approval.

"WTF is THIS?! You trying to cheat me out of my money you lazy bastards?! I pay you loads of money and you lazy assholes just put a tiny graphic and a few words on the page? What the HELL is all this blank space?! You took my money and give me a blank page! Now fill the damn thing up! I want it crammed with piicutres and words! I want bright colors, Goddamit!"

*sigh* Normal, unartistic people scare me sometimes.

[Pat]

Ok, seeing as how this is apparently some kind of rare, arcane knowledge I'll explain what I recall from college.

The Rule of Thirds comes from the Greeks, who spent a lot of time observing pleasing compositions and coming up with other aesthetic rules like the Golden Mean.

The Rule of Thirds is exactly as it sounds. Divide your picture plane into three equal parts, both horizontally and vertically. You'll get this tic-tac-toe looking thing.



The theory is that putting your subject directly in the middle of the image (aka "bullseyeing") is less interesting than if it's offset to one of the sides, specifically centered around one of the lines on the above grid.

I've heard that the Greeks came to this conclusion because of their obessive study of basic shapes, specifically triangles. When a subject is directly centered on the picture plane, the resulting triangle can't be a right angle --resulting in an unstable or awkward feeling compostition. So, what you're looking for are these special intersection points (circled above) as prime locations for the focus of your subject.

I was taught that you can vary this (it's only a rule --and we all know they're made to be broken) but you should try to pay attention to the dividing the picture plane with the subject in as geometrically as stable a method as possible. I end up examining my work by drawing triangles kinda like this:



...where the lines indicate basic compositional structure of the subject and the right angle interesection of the lines indicating the focus of the subject.

Here's a simple picture I took this week in San Diego:



Note that the parts of the background match up quite nicely, with clear areas of the image broken neatly into thirds. According to the Rule of Thirds this would be a VERY strong composition if the subject (in this case those two poles with the red banners on them) matched up exactly on the 1/3 lines as well. You win some you lose some.

Is this making sense?

-Pat

[ July 27, 2001: Message edited by: Pat ]

[Isric]

Oooh man have I ever missed these discussions. Briliant isights, I have a question though. I'm on a search for knowledge about Dynamics. In composition, are there theories that relate? Can you make an image more/less dynamic with composition? I mean there's the obvious diference between Symetrical and exciting, 2's and 3's, but when drawing a picture, is there a relation? Or did I just answer my own question...

[Collosimo]

Isric: In terms of a 'dynamic' composition, you have sort of answered your question. Consider the fact that placing things centrally, or symmetrically, tends to be a 'static' composition. Therefore anything venturing beyond that is generally a little more dynamic. I think that you may also be trying to find out how to make your compositions more exciting and better at telling a dynamic story. Storytelling being the active word here, it is vitally important that you make everything about your pictures tell the story to its fullest.

So how do you do that? Well I can't really answer that easily. Apart from using a more dynamic composition like the golden mean or 3rd's or whatever, you just sort of organise your picture to tell the story in the best possible way. It's like choosing the best camera angle, to portray the story. If some guy gets flung off a building, we wanna see him go down!

Other than that, there are certain ways dealing with "Shape Design"... kind of like when I talked about the negative spaces, and the way the varying gaps can channel visual power in one end and out the other. Its an 'arrow' theory. If you leave an indicator, then people with probably follow it. That can certainly make a composition more 'dynamic'..


Hope that helps.. gtg now.

[n8]

yeah..rule of the thirds...somebody posted stuff on that a long while back..you migth be able to find it if you do a search on it in the old section..and as for lunatiqes info on composition..i think its pretty much the same idea isnt it??..but instead of creating focal point at the intersections its in the squares...so theres still 4 focal points??..yeah...anyway...thanx for sharing..for sharing is caring..hehe..

[worthless_meat_sack]

ahhhh! Help me, turn off my brain!!

I am about as analytical as anyone around on most subjects, but this one I am trying to leave alone.

Make the image what YOU want to see, what floats YOUR boat.

Trying to make compositions better through analysis is bound to mess you up bad. You will end up repeating yourself in a misguided attempt to make "good" compositions.

It's like trying to fall asleep. The harder you try, the worse it gets.

I have seen inexperienced artists do really well with compositions (meaning I like the feeling in their art, nothing more) but mostly I think that compositional skill comes with years of work, of doing. You cannot bootstrap yourself up on this.

I have no doubt that underneath all that feel-it-baby stuff there is a mechanism, and logic and history tells us that mechanisms can be dissected, understood and reassembled and made to work better, but I think this is too complex for a working artist to deal with. And you know how dangerous a little knowledge can be.

I am a romantic, as opposed to a classicist, as you can tell from what I am writing here. I guess it is just a different trip. I feel that my compositional skill is still pretty weak, and that is something I have on the list after I get better with the figure. But I think that it is not something you can consciously improve.

But if you are working in a genre of classical art that has rules, you can follow the rules and make good art. It is good cause it followed the rules! There is something wrong there, to me.

I have had countless discussions with my instructors at AC about this. Some feel the way I do, and I suppose I liked their work better. The 19th century was about the loosening of rules that had been derived from the ancient world and thought to be the definition of good art. The Romantics did wonderful art and broke all the rules. The same is true in music. Look at what was considered “good” harmonic practice. Bach and Mozart had a strong mathematical basis for what they wrote. Beethoven started to “break” those harmonies. It has continued through now. That is one reason why the big B is remembered.

Please don’t get the idea that this is an excuse for indulgence, and that is if a rule is broken, it must be good. That is dumb the other way. What I am saying is that the Romantic ideal is still based on solid principles, but they are a great deal more complex than the classical and may not be amenable to easy analysis. Maybe someday all the principles that come into play will be analyzed and understood, and the academics, bless their souls, will do it, I have no doubt. I am not a mystic by any stretch.

It’s a giant Chinese puzzle that you can only get the barest glimpse of.

So to the aspiring academics, study on. To practicing artists and illustrators, just feel-it-baby.

[silber]

hmmmhhh.. feels good

[frostfyre]

Tangentially related- if you can find a copy, check out Chuck Jones' film "The Dot and the Line". In addition to being a charming take on the childrens book of the same name, it is a marvelous example of all kinds of compositions,animated for excellent emotional effect.

The Dot and the Line

It is the romantic story of a line that falls hopelessly in love with a dot.

[jr]

Frost, that’s a great movie!
this is a tricky subject, I mean art isn't math, there's no conclusive answer or formula to a great painting. Art is so subjective. that's my two cents i borrowed.

Anywho, back to my simpsons thread.

[Akolyte]

Isric, dynamicy can be achieved with the corporation of X's and arcs into your figural composition. Add this to an interesting camera angle, and viola. This is what I've heard, but I'm still complete suckage, so it may not work

[Ben Barker]

Man, this is all we talked about in Design Foundations. And we end up with crap like this, which got an A:



Ehh, I don't know. There's a lot of talk in design. Gab gab gab. It's not like people will look at this excersize and be filled with the inner light of the golden proportion, and that will be dashed to Hell if the rules are broken. Strictly following the rules is only really a necessity when dealing with pure line and shape, like the picture above, since that is all you have to work with. And even then there is a lot of "do it till it looks right."

[Felaxx]

analyzing composition just gets me confused. I have to agree with the people that try to "feel" things out, and try to tell your story the way you see fit. I have some pictures where things are located in the dead center, but I only do that if I want the viewer to have a certain feeling, like they're hypnotized by the subject and can't move? um... hehe or like if I have a character sitting in a big sweeping landscape I try to have the shapes of the mountains/trees/etc to dance around and eventually lead to the figure, which would most likely be on the left or right side of a long horizontal canvas (this is like a horrible formula but I do it anyway). I do it this way because I'm trying to get the viewer to see what the character sees, like a sequence. First the viewer sees the landscape, then it sees the reaction of the character to this landscape. That's the best way I can think of to make something dynamic, treat it kinda like a sequence of images and think about what you want the viewer to look at first, and what you want their eye to lead to. But when I draw I usually don't think about stuff like this, I usually just draw what I see in my head (or try to at least...). Wow was I talking in circles or what? Well I wasn't relaly talking just typing... all righty then.

[quaternius]

Hmmm...follow the rules... don't follow the rules. I follow "some" of the rules "some" of the time to help me set up some of my compositions. I think of them more as guidelines than rules. For instance, the rule of thirds is a good example. It's a very strong way to establish a focal point. However, you're focal point doesn't need to be spot-on the intersections -- just close. This can be true because you'll be playing with other things like "balance" and tonal value -- meaning you can move things off the classic intersections and still retain a powerful composition by doing other things.

Unlike Craig, I think you can improve your composition dramatically by studying it and understanding the things you're doing. Having said that, I'd agree with Craig that it's not until you internalize it and draw and paint a lot that you begin to intuitively build your compositions. I think by studying composition you can learn to "know" what rules to break to make the composition do what you want.

Best advise I ever received was to "copy" the compositions of the great masters. On the internet there's plenty of places to find examples. Take them and put a gaussian blur on them in PS and see where the light and dark values are... try and figure out some of the things that make the compositions good. Then, do your own picture based on it. For example, try taking a Velasquez and turning it into a picture of a mech - but using the basic composition of the master. By doing this you are "practicing" good compositions and "rehearsing" building your own. Like I said, some of the best advice I ever got.