[Wyatt Turner]

[ June 02, 2001: Message edited by: Wyatt Turner ]

[Steven Stahlberg]

Ok, I was led here by the nose, by TigerEatens post...
so here goes, some feedback:
In the attached image I've tried to clarify the main compositional problem here - the spots indicate the location and strength of the different focii of interest, the places of high contrast which attract the eye. At left, as we can see, the focii are too similar and evenly distributed. They should be more along the lines of the example to the right, varied in both strength and position. (The text at the bottom falls a bit outside this rule, since our eyes and brains treat text differently than images.)

There are of course as many ways to achieve this variation as there are artists, my suggestion at top right is just an example.



Steven

[ June 13, 2001: Message edited by: Steven Stahlberg ]

[Akolyte]

Damn, good points. Y@, i think if you sharpened up the edges and clarified his light source a bit more, it would make it a lot sharper, on top of Steven's compositional suggestions.

[Gimbal8]

I can only hope I get balance like that when I'm almost finished or maybe already done with an image.
[Gimbal laughs himself silly] Hooo boy that was funny. Like I ever finish an image. Hahaha...aahhhhh anyway -

Usually I'll think of something to draw and when i'm done drawing it, there it is. There will be this thing I drew right smack-dab in the middle of the paper/screen without thought to what I'm going to do with it in the overall scheme of a painting.
I'm aware there are many ways to go about this but I wonder what kinds of things go through other peoples minds when considering composition of a picture. For me, getting a digital camera has done wonders for thinking before hand how to compose a shot. But there is so much already done for me when taking a photo. Everything is there. In a painting I have much more control over placement, color, saturation, everything, and the options bog me down. Perhaps I shouldn't think so much and just start shooting from the hip and let what I've learned, hopefully, come out in the end.
Why am I rambling on so much? I think I should stop eating these damn kit kat bites.

[ June 13, 2001: Message edited by: Gimbal8 ]

[Steven Stahlberg]

Gimbal8, I know how you feel, I used to be scared to death back in the old days when I was working on paper or canvas, that I would find the composition wasn't working when I was done.
Now of course we have it much easier, over-painting, cutting/pasting and retouching can be done SO much cleaner.

About getting the focus smack in the middle, yes, that should be avoided, especially with great expanses of 'nothing' all around it. There's an easy compositional device you can use, which is a simplification of the Golden Mean, you can split your image up into 9 equal squares like a tic-tac-toe game (just roughly, mentally, will do). Then you just choose one of the 4 central intersections to place your main focus of interest in.

An exercise you can try is to take one of your old images and edit it PURELY from a compositional point of view, like I did above. Be cruel, free, wild. Don't pussyfoot around, if a part doesn't work, just kill it. Sometimes it helps to turn the image upside down while you do this, so you can look at it in a more abstract way.

I write some more thoughts about composition on my website, in the howto section.

Steven

[ June 13, 2001: Message edited by: Steven Stahlberg ]

[Wyatt Turner]

Ok Ok some great feed back. the Knowledge of other artist such as Steven is Pure gold for me. Thanks you for the info. Never really though about it like that. Now I'll be back with some kind of mess.

After I looked at it, days later, I saw what you are showing, just couldn't understand the elements that it had lost while I was working on it.

I'll be Back.
thanks guys

[ June 13, 2001: Message edited by: Wyatt Turner ]

[Wyatt Turner]

Ok I tried... not sure I like. But understand where you where pulling the focus. I'll look to the future, for more critique. I think I went a little to dark, but hey no pussy footing. Onto the next project.

[Briareos]

Dude, it really does look better.