eP.048 Exploring Design: Compositional Instinct

We’re diving into the wonderful world of composition here, especially the composition you already instinctively know, if you know what to listen for. We’ll talk about focal points, grids and guidelines, and classic compositional approaches but mostly, this is about your awareness of how you arrange elements in your work and the effect it has on your viewer.

Come join me for the first installment of this two-parter on the wonderful and beautiful world of

Other Resources mentioned:

Fibonacci squares and the golden spiral image:

https://i0.wp.com/www.thepolymerarts.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/fib-gr-grid.jpg?resize=350%2C319&ssl=1

Examples of the Rule of Thirds and the Golden Ratio/Spiral

https://artulens.com/blog/2017/1/25/the-golden-section-vs-the-rule-of-thirds

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CREDITS:

Cover design by Sage; Illustration by Olga Kostenko

Music by Playsound

For Transcript click on the episode here: https://rss.com/podcasts/thesagearts/

Transcript

Transcription (AI transcribed, unedited. Please excuse the copious errors.)

We see versions of composition throughout nature throughout the artwork that we’re seeing. We’ve been seeing this everywhere our whole lives and so we instinctively recognize it and we find order and comfort in it. Hello all my beautiful. And will compose creatives out there. Thank. You for joining. Me on the Sage Arts podcast. This is sage and we are getting into our first kind of design lesson of this new year 2024 and I have to. Tell you it has. Been so difficult getting to sit down and just. Record this. I am recording this on Friday night, which is when I usually. Get it posted. Because it’s just been a netty week, so much stuff is going on, I can’t even explain, won’t even explain. Won’t bore you with it so. We’re going to. Just kind of get into it instead. Of a lot of preamble and stuff like I usually do the. Quick business notes just if. You need to contact me. The sagearts.com has a contact page. That’s where you can do donations for well through buy me a coffee and PayPal, and there’s a newsletter you can sign up for there so you know when all the new episodes come out and get any of the extras that come. Along with them and. Yeah, and and thank you everybody who wrote. Me about the last episode. The chat between Christy Friesen and I. We hit a nerve with or not nerve we. We hit a point. Of contemplation for a lot of people, mostly in the why does everything have to have a purpose? Why does everything have to have multiple reasons for doing it, that kind of thing? I thought it was really interesting cause, you know, sometimes we go through life thinking I’ve got this crazy thing no one else has this crazy thing. And that was one of the things I thought I was always doing that wasn’t very common. Apparently it’s really common. So the whole point of that episode was to go out and be a child and just enjoy things and let your creativity flow through naturally, because the more often you do that, the more often you will be able to access that. When you’re in your studio and reach that real, authentic, childlike curiosity that really works and informs. Our artwork. Anyways, thank you everyone. We are going to just jump right into this because there is so much to talk about when it comes to this particular design concept and it’s going to revolve around composition. There’s so much to this that I’m actually going to do it for two months because there was a lot to think about, so much to kind of dig through. So much fun to be had. So today, we’re really gonna. Just try to. Get grounded in composition and I. Know I usually. Give you questions to hold on to as you listen to the conversations. And I like to do that. Because I think it gives you a focus to try to answer something for yourself during the podcast. But the questions here will really depend on where you are in terms of understanding. Position. So maybe you can ask yourself in relation to what you know how you evaluate your composition. Is it instinctual? Or do you? Use grids or guidelines. How do you create focal points and how aware are you of their arrangement and the effect it has on your work? And then maybe there is an overriding. Question of simply are there areas you can improve in terms of composition and then listen for ideas that you can implement. OK, let me start with my own. Question of sorts.

You know.

How? When you’re working on a piece that is so perfect in your head just so wonderful, but when you start working on it, or even maybe it doesn’t even happen till you finish, you realize and that just doesn’t look right. This doesn’t look like what I had in my head. There’s definitely a shortcoming that we have translating from the. Malleable ideas in our head to the concrete. Work in front of us. Those ideas don’t have to adhere so strictly to the laws of physics in our brains, right? And to the limitations of our materials. But when we sit down to do the actual work, all those things, physics and the limitations of the materials do come into play. So what can we do about that? It doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot. But I actually. Think there is some things that we can do because a lot of what fails us in the execution of our. Ideas are kind of seated in very particular design concepts. Now. Last year we talked about a whole variety of design elements. Basically, those are the things that you bring together to make your artwork, line, texture, shape and even color. Although we haven’t hit on color yet because this is big, long, crazy ride. Really fun. But it’s been taking me a while to figure out how to talk about color in an audio only format, so I think we’ll be doing it maybe in March when I finally get to. Altogether. But in any case, for the rest of the year, we are going to talk about the things that I think get most lost in translation. They’re known as the principles of design, and although they sound very academic, they are what makes working with the elements really so much fun. And like I’ve said before, I don’t want you to take these chats about. Design is some kind of class. Yes, you don’t need to take notes or anything unless that’s your thing, of course. But I think we really best learn art in all these concepts. The same way. We learned the language as a child because it is its own form of language. We learn it with constant exposure and regular attention to create an instinctual. Sense of what works and what does it. However, I do believe it’s good to have, like clear conscious understanding of these concepts, so that when you’re flummoxed by your work or the work is feeling stale, you can turn to these understandings to figure out what could be different and maybe shake things up a bit. So yeah, I think a lot of us, we see something in our head that we want to create, but the idea is a lot more vague. And they seem, and we realize that when we sit down to. On it. Because yeah, we see that. We want to work with certain types of line or marks or textures or colors. We may even have some idea of composition, but then in creating we have to make these real concrete choices and I think one of the concepts that can make a really big difference in the translation is a thorough understanding and awareness of composition. How to do it well? How to do it properly and how to reach in and use your gut instinct?

Thanks if you’ve been.

Listening to this podcast straight through then you may have already heard me talk about composition a little bit in the episode on Space episode 44, I defined kind of what composition is so that you had a context for the use of space. So this next little bit might be a bit of repetition for you, but let’s talk about what composition is composition. Is that one thing, that one principle that you absolutely can’t do without because it literally means the arrangement of the elements, and it also encompasses the application of many of the principles. And again, we’ll talk about those as the. Year goes on.

But it’s nice.

To know about the composition first. Because then when we talk about those principles. You can kind of imagine how they work into the composition, so composition is a very important concept. For your work. At its most basic, composition is the big picture. Think of it as the convergence of all the elements and their characteristics. So it’s really your design. Strangely enough, though, composition is sometimes just glossed over or even completely ignored or overlooked in design lessons and classes, and I believe that’s because it’s a bit hard to instruct people on how to compose their work, and really very finite terms. This is art. There’s nothing that’s very black and white to start with. But especially in three-dimensional classes, it’s just hard to talk about these kind of standard ideas of composition when you’re talking about something that can be seen from different angles. So much of what we’ll talk about will be in reference to two-dimensional composition. But if you work in three dimensions, you can think of it as applying to one particular. View of your work from one particular position, like when the work is photographed right, because the balance and effect of the arrangement is going to have an impact based on the direction from which the work is viewed, and so your composition on analysis should be done from the point at which your viewers will most often or most likely see you. Now although composition. Is about the arrangement of elements. I think the better way to look at it, or at least in your mind, to think about it, is that it’s about relationships. It’s mostly about relationships between elements, but it can also actually be about relationships between principles, between the themes that you’re trying to work out, and even between the. Work and the artist. For the work and. Viewer and when I’m talking relationships, particularly in terms of the elements, I mean how the elements relate to each other in the space of the work, like their proximity or distance from each other, if they’re in higher or lower position. So relative to each other, if they are singular or grouped, connected or disconnected for instance. Circle could seem to be static if it’s sat on or near a horizontal line, but it will seem to be rolling or moving if it’s on a diagonal line, but it won’t look like it’s rolling if there’s enough space between the circle and the diagonal line to make the circle look like it’s. Just hovering in air. Those perceptions are all possible because of the relationship you set up between the circle and the lines. You establish that through the arrangement of the elements or composition, it’s read differently because of those arrangements. In other words, your composition determines how those elements are read by the viewer, largely because of the relationship. Two other elements, right? Now composition is not unlike a well structured and cleverly told story that inserts intrigue into the plot and life into the characters and how it’s told. Likewise, A composition gives the elements energy and life that is supportive of your intention simply by how they are. Even though composition is very conceptual, largely intuitive, for most artists, it does have the fortunate advantage of having been picked apart by enough people over many, many years that there are a lot of standards, guides, and formulas that you can use to develop useful arrangements when your instincts aren’t doing right by you or. As starting points, really. A lot of these guidelines we already identify intuitively, even if we can’t name them or point them out. It’s like, you know, you like chocolate, but you might not know why you might not know. It’s because of, say, the contrast of. Astringency to sweetness. That presents when it starts to melt. In your mouth. Along with the. Way it blooms. Into hints of. Fruit as it coats your tongue with its glossy texture. Now you probably never thought about chocolate like that, but go grab a piece right now and see if you can figure out why you like it so much. It’s OK you can tell anybody that sees you getting into the chocolate stash that it’s for homework, and I assigned. The point is, our instincts are there to help us along. They are kind of shortcuts in our decision making through life. They’re fantastic and I personally really depend on them, but they’re not as helpful when something is not right and you want to fix it because for the most part, they don’t come with a lot of detailed. Understanding right, like you’re not understanding why you’re like chocolate. But if you’re making chocolates and they don’t come out right, you would want to understand why so you can fix them well. Same goes for art. When things are arranged in a balanced and pleasing manner, we sense it even if we can’t identify why, and we definitely sense it when artwork is not balanced. However, we commonly can’t instantly identify why it’s not working. The truth is we. Are actually better. At identifying what’s wrong with the. Thing before we can figure out what’s right with the thing, because for survival’s sake, we are always naturally looking for problems. If we hadn’t done that throughout our evolution, we wouldn’t be here. We needed to be on the lookout for danger and it’s really helpful to know something that’s potentially going to hurt us and be able to do something about it, much more so than needing to recognize that something is beautiful or potentially enjoyable. So yes, seeing what’s wrong becomes pretty obvious, and it’s great that we can do that, but it’s ever so much more helpful if we actually know why. Because then knowing the reason why it can help us figure out how to change it and make it. There. Right. Don’t you find that you’re less likely to get frustrated by things that are wrong if you know how to fix them? No. That’s because having those answers really helps. So yeah, my goal here is to make you more aware of the possibilities of composition. So you are able to identify not just when a piece is not working. But the why of that with potential? Avenues through which to improve. Of it. So this month, let’s splash around in the concept of composition. To do so, I do need to bring in at least one of the anchoring concepts for composition. It’s often listed as a principle of design or as a sub principle under composition, or under the principle of hierarchy, which I’m so looking forward to doing that. But that’s going to be later. As well, this concept is about focal points. So what are focal points? How do you identify them and why are they so important for composition? Well, focal points are where our eyes. Go when we look at. A piece they visually draw us in, like visual magnets. They’re usually given a position or sense of importance in the work, often operating as a kind of home. Base for our eyes to return to as it. Explores the rest. To the work. They are commonly a single element or a close grouping of elements that give the focal point a sense of being a single or even collective entity. The vast majority of artwork benefits tremendously from a focal point or two or three focal points. I say most because you can have work that doesn’t seem to have a focal point, but if the viewer doesn’t have a point where they naturally start the exploration of your piece, the viewer may feel lost or unsettled. But maybe that’s what you want, which is why you might not use a focal. Point, but barring any of that needling. Of your viewer. You probably want to insert or recognize where your focal points are in your work. Focal points don’t have to be particularly obvious. To the extent that even if you. Don’t choose one the viewer. Will look for. It and they’ll probably find something to act as a focal point, even if you hadn’t put anything in particular for that in the work. So since viewers are going to look for them and are likely going to pick something to be a focal point. It’s really best that you be. In charge of what that actually is. Your focal point will be either an element that the eye is strongly drawn to, like a. Dot or a symbol. Or a face. And by the way, you should note that one of the strongest focal points you can have in pretty much any piece will be a face. So if you have a face in your work, it’s probably going to be a focal point. It’s another. Evolutionary survival thing there, you know, paying attention to the people around you or the people that you run into, figuring out who your friends are, who your foes are, or whatever. In any case, our gaze can also be drawn to things with tremendous contrast or a place where an element is isolated, or they can be things that simply strike us as odd, unusual, or out of place, or particularly exciting. We’re also partial to the color. Red that will really draw the eye especially. If that’s the only red thing in the composite. Then there’s also a thing about dark areas that look like they go inward, like a tunnel or a hole. Because most of us want to investigate those little dark, mysterious places. Or if we don’t want to investigate it, it’s because it’s they scare us, and so we want to keep an. Eye on it. And then there’s like spots of bright light, like a star. Or the gleam of a. Gem there’s also things like words. Really pop out to us. Written or printed words. All these things and more draw the eye, but. Just put it. In like a. Word or a glimpse on the gem isn’t necessarily going to make those things focal point. In truth, not even faces will be focal points if they don’t have a well defined relationship with other things in the picture that make them stand out. It doesn’t take much to make a face stand out, it just has to be big enough to be seen relatively immediately, and it can’t be lost in like a whole sea of similarly sized and colored. This is because no one face will seem more important.

Way, right?

If it’s singular, if it’s front facing, for instance, and the sea of faces and all the other faces are turned. Sideways it’s going. To seem important, it’s going to seem significant that that’s one face that’s facing forward. While none of the rest. Of them are or. If it’s bigger, or if it’s lighter, or if it has a dramatic look on its face, those faces will absolutely become focal points. Words work in a similar way. Anyone that knows how to read will want to immediately read and interpret the words shown to them. But if there’s a whole bunch of words, they can’t each be focal points, right? Unless there’s something to differentiate one or two or three. Of them a single word. And a piece of artwork or one very clearly written or printed. Were done in bold or red. In a sea of words that are otherwise. Black. Those will become focal points as. Well, because they. Are differentiated and that’s the relationship that they have with everything else, they are different. They stand out. The relationship is I am not like. The rest of this. Other items that are not an inherently strong draw can be focal points for the same reason, if they’re bigger, bolder, brighter, darker, more defined, basically just visually, very different from other elements that can make them a focal point. Elements that are isolated draw our eyes as well. Think of one person sitting off to the side. At a park where everyone else is kind of grouped together in one area, that one person is really going to stand out. It really draws our curiosity. Singular, isolated elements in your work will basically do the same thing. Now you can have more than one focal point like I kind of mentioned in your work and most of. The time you do. Commonly people will put in. A primary focal point that people are first drawn to or that dominates the work. And then there are others in secondary positions, or there is a hierarchy of multiple focal points, and we’ll get into that deeper when we get to the whole hierarchy thing. But for now I just want you to be aware of what you use as focal points and what determines A focal point. That we can talk about what kind of compositions they create because focal points determine much of the basic characteristics of your comps. Addition, we’re going to take a look at 2 compositional ideas that are literally centered around focal points. Those concepts are symmetry and asymmetry. You’ve all heard of this symmetry simply means that there is a predictable repetition of elements around a center line or a center point of the work. In other words, there’s a mirroring. Elements or components in an even manner around those center lines or center points. Now the most common symmetry, probably what’s popping up into your head right now is what is usually referred to as reflection or mirrored symmetry, or both sides of the work either left or right or top and bottom are mirrored images of each other. Another common one is radial symmetry, where a repeated group of elements identically arranged radiate from a center point. So like a mandala or a snowflake even. Those are both kind of ideal types of symmetry. There are other types of symmetry that people have defined, but honestly you can look at any one of those other ones that are redefined and labeled and categorized. And you’ll see. That they’re based pretty much on either mirrored symmetry or radial symmetry. I think the only real exception to that. Is what is referred to as near symmetry. This is where you create something that is mostly symmetrical, but is either a little bit off or maybe one thing is asymmetrical like you make mandala, but the center point is maybe pushed towards the top and and not at the direct center. But everything otherwise radiates from the center and maybe the shortened lines are shrunk proportionately or elements are eliminated. To allow them to be shorter and fit, but otherwise the arrangement of elements is predictable and based on the center point. Asymmetry. The other basic type of composition is simply composition. That’s not symmetrical, that doesn’t have a necessarily predictable pattern of elements around a central position. The focal points are maybe off to the left or the right, or the top or the bottom. Maybe both, and much, if not all the rest of the elements don’t repeat, or don’t do so in a predictable. Regular manna. Usually I feel like I’m always saying, usually by. The way because. This is art, and it’s not really black. And white, which I think they said that already today. Too, but in any case. A lot of work actually. Falls in between these two between symmetry and asymmetry. Like the overall. Composition might seem asymmetrical, but some areas are actually. Metrical within that or the whole thing is very symmetrical, except every component that makes up that symmetry is asymmetrical. So like maybe an image of a garden where the arrangement of the plants, the stems or shadows, the hills off in the distance are all set up asymmetric. But then there’s a gate with fencing in the foreground, and the gate is centered and the posts are painted out at regular intervals on either side. Very symmetrically presented, this brings in a wonderful contrast between symmetry and asymmetry, as well as organic and non organic within the work itself, and I think a lot. Of work really. Does that so it doesn’t have to be simply symmetrical or simply asymmetrical. There’s a lot of mixing in between and that brings us to the question of. How do you decide? What kind of symmetry is right for your work? Well, as with anything else in art, you make your decision based on your intention. What is it you want the piece to say or make the viewer feel? Or what is it you’re trying to share? That is the only kind of hard and fast rule here, because everything else is. Kind of up. For grabs. If you’ve worked in art for any length of time, you’ve probably heard something to the effect that some metrical composition lacks sophistication, that it is a mark of a novice, or a lazy artist. I think that’s just a load of garbage. But I’ve seen artists, especially jewelry and wearable art artists, of course, have been around a lot of them. So that’s probably why I’ve. Seen this so. Much, but I’ve seen them bend over backwards to avoid making symmetrical pieces. Even though that kind of. Work is made to adorn some of the most symmetrical things in the world, which is our human body. It actually makes sense in a lot of cases to just do it symmetrically, because then it echoes and reflects what it is actually going. To be worn on. And this is not to say that doing it asymmetrically is bad or. Anything it’s not it. Just depends on what you’re trying to say. You may actually want that contrast between the symmetry of the body and the asymmetry of. The work. But I do fear. That a lot of those artists are making it asymmetrical simply because they’re afraid that their work will be seen as unsophisticated. I mean, I’ve even been in classes where the primary criticism of a piece was that they created a symmetrical composition, and it’s not like they’re telling them why the symmetrical composition was wrong for that piece, just that they used it as if it was off limits. Now, if you’re one of those people who have been convinced they should avoid symmetry. I’m here to free. You up symmetry is not only OK quite often it is the best and only way to compose a piece. Again, it all depends on your intention and symmetry has some very specific concepts. It can relay that you may want to take. Image of for instance, symmetry creates a sense of stability, groundedness, sometimes formality, sometimes power, sometimes tranquility. Very often it represents some kind of control. It is, at its core, one of our most recognizable concepts of beauty. Because of the organized nature of symmetry, we do find beauty in predictability. You see it throughout the natural world and flowers, crystals, leaves in all creatures right. In studies on beauty, people are consistently found to respond to and find more attractive faces that are perfectly. Symmetrical. There’s a lot of gorgeous and highly prized art out there that leans heavily on symmetry, but for some reason people aren’t outwardly recognizing it. So think of paintings like Botelli’s. Birth of Venus is not perfectly symmetrical, but there’s a lot of symmetry going on, or the famous Last Supper, right? They’re both kinds. Of near symmetry. Or look at like the Taj Mahal or the Palace of Versailles. Perfect symmetry there and their gorgeous buildings think of synchronized dancing or a spider web beautiful as well. We love symmetry. It’s a beautiful thing. So no one can say that symmetry in and of itself lacks anything in the way of sophistication or interest. It’s not symmetry. That lacks sophist. Education master artists do use it all the time, just as newbies do. And although I do have to agree that sometimes newer artists might lean on symmetry a little bit, much as I go to composition, but at the end of the day, it’s all in how it’s used. It’s the whole of the design choices. So yeah, the predictability of symmetry. Can tip a composition over into boring a bit easier than with asymmetry. But asymmetry can tip a composition into chaos and confusion easier than symmetrical composition. So in either case it really comes down to the artists skill and knowledge that will make or break the composition, not the type of composition it is. So. Yeah, there are also very compelling reasons that you would want to use asymmetry. Asymmetrical compositions are very good at conveying movement, tension, uncertainty, energy, drama. It also tends to be more organic and natural feeling and can convey change and a more involved sense of story. And it can do this much better than symmetry because symmetry is static and story involves the progression of things overtime. As does change, of course, because that’s the. Very definition of. So if you want to share a story from your vacation, say asymmetry is likely going to support that better than symmetry. But if there’s a. Specific quiet moment you want to capture symmetry and it’s calm might actually serve you better. You see where I’m going with this? Choose the composition for the intention for the piece. Not because of any outside expectation or common approach or trend or anything else. And listen to your gut. I think we all have gut instincts about these things with some of us more attuned to our gut instincts than others. But you can feel it. Now obviously there’s a lot more to composition than just symmetry and asymmetry within both. There is a myriad of different possibilities for how to arrange your elements, and you can do this completely with your instincts like I’m saying, but if something doesn’t feel right or you’re at a loss as to where to start composition, let me give you a couple easy peasy and kind of classic. Compositional approaches. Now you can use these guidelines as starting points or lay them over existing pieces and see if you’re hitting some of these classic focal point positions that these two things help identify. The first one I. Want to talk? About is called the rule of thirds, the. Rule of thirds provides a simple but very pleasing way to lay out your elements. It’s also pretty dynamic while easily remaining. Balance. The real third is like a tic tac toe grid laid over your work. 2 lines horizontal, 2 lines vertical. They’re set equal distant from the edges and from each other, and that grid gives you basically nine boxes. If you look at your work in terms of this 9 box grid, you end up with several choice positions for focal points and breaking up the. For instance, the points near where the horizontal and vertical lines intersect are. Great places to. Set a primary focal point as well as other secondary focal points. The grid can also be used to. Break up the. Space. So if you want like 2 background textures instead of just splitting the canvas in half or putting them all really. Really you can put the stronger texture in just one third, so covering three of those squares on your grid in a row. The second texture can take up the rest of the area, but it has more space, so if it’s not as visually strong as the other, that extra space gives it more visual weight because it takes up more of the area and that helps balance it against the visual draw of the stronger texture. You could also have your focal points. At one convergence of lines and have secondary elements scattered in a single square or sitting on one of the lines. There are no hard and fast rules about this, but it gives you something to work. Off of now, even though the viewer doesn’t see this grid, they do sense it. There is a rightness to the way the space is evenly split, and so when points of interest land on positions on one of those lines, they are third of the way from the edge and we sense a relationship between that one third line that our focal point sits on. And the fact that there is another 2/3 to the other side of it, double the distance the focal point is away from its closest edge. Very few of us will recognize that in a cone. This way but that. Evenness that unseen math actually helps to provide a sense of balance and aid in saving your work from. Just looking all Willy nilly. Let’s talk about another kind of grid as well. It’s a more complicated one in essence, although the use of it is actually very simple and this is the golden ratio. Or the golden spiral. Like the rule of thirds, the golden ratio is a kind of grid of, but this time it’s based on the ratio of things in nature. It’s a matter of proportions. So let me see if I can explain this and not confuse anybody or lose you or have you turned this podcast off? The proportion in the golden ratio is something in the range of 3/5 to 2/5, although that is actually. Quite incorrect, but I use those fractions in my head so I just have something to hold on to because the ratio is actually. Actually, 1.618 and some more numbers after that and that number. Is actually the. Sum of those proportions in some kind of math thingy. Which? That’s not really. A usable thing for us as artists or just math challenge folks, but what? This math. Has to do with art. Is that it just happens to map out proportions and placements that are found throughout nature. And again, even though we may not understand it, we may not be doing the math in our head and trying to figure it out. As we’re looking. At it, we do instinctively recognize these proportions and equate it with beauty because it’s a form of organization. That nature uses and that we recognize the most common golden ratio grid in art is basically formed by the breaking down of a particular rectangle. Now this is a bit tedious to explain auditorially, so hopefully this comes across, but if you want go to the description section of the podcast and I’ll have a link to an image of this for you so you can kind of follow along. But basically the golden ratio is a grid that’s made-up of a rectangle that has a line. That splits the rectangle at the point at which. The split creates a perfect. Where the rest of the rectangle is a rectangle itself, and that leftover rectangle has the exact same proportions as the original big rectangle. The ratio of those proportions is the golden ratio. Let’s take a slice of bread in a rectangular shape that just happens to have golden ratio proportions. You cut the slice of bread that’s laid in front of you so you have a perfect square of bread, right? The piece of bread that’s left over after you’ve cut your slice. So you have. A perfect square. It’ll be a rectangle that will have the exact proportions of the original rectangular slice of bread. If you keep that bread just as you don’t move the bread around as you cut it right, it’s all together. If you split that leftover rectangle to create another perfectly square bit of bread. It too will. Leave behind a rectangle that is the exact proportion of the original rectangle. If you find a visual. It will make so much more sense, but basically if you keep cutting rectangles into squares and leave a rectangle behind and then cut that rectangle again, eventually you’re going to end. Up with a little. Square in this kind of off center position of this bigger rectangle. So your slice of bread. Cut it and cut it and cut it and then eventually end up with this little crumb in the middle, or actually not in the middle. It’s actually off center. It’s sort of kind of halfway between the center point. And one of the corners, this little crumb of. A rectangle turns out to be an ideal position for a focal point in composition. And if you draw a line through from the first square from when the corners of the very first square all the way through all the other squares that were cut it. Will create a. Spiral, known as the golden spiral. Basically, it’s that spiral you see in a Nautilus shell or in a snail shell, or in the unfurling of a frond of a Fern. Or in a hurricane and spiral galaxies in pine cones, even this is all over nature. And even if we don’t understand it, we are recognizing it instinctively. And that’s why it’s used. Aren’t work now. Those squares and rectangles that we talked about that we’ve cut that piece of bread into, those are what is known as Fibonacci squares. And they’re named after this mathematical genius who figured all this stuff out from nature. The squares actually represents A mathematical sequence that is by the same name in the Fibonacci sequence. And they’re everywhere. In a world that we think is very random, as it turns out, things are very organized, just not necessarily in how we expect. And this organization pops up all over the place all the time. You can find these proportions on your body like in the proportions of your limb, your upper arm compared to the rest of your arm is like the 2/5. Part of it, that smaller rectangle or the whole arm compared to the body also has the same ratio. It’s also found in the arrangement of flower petals in. The way tree. Branches grow and split even in the double Helix of DNA. We’ve been seeing this ratio everywhere our whole lives and so we instinctively recognize it. And again we find order and comfort in it. And strangely enough, or not so strangely, that tiniest little square crumb in the off center position in the bread or the Fibonacci squares, as we now know. Them that great position for focal point. It also lands very closely to where the. Lines would cross if you overlaid a rule of thirds grid. On the golden ratio? No grid. Interesting, isn’t it? So you can lay the Fibonacci squares as a grid over your art and put focal points in that kind of ideal spot where the tiny square is. You can also lay things out on that spiral to echo the golden spiral leaning into that other instinctively recognized compositional arrangement, right. By the way, the grid doesn’t have to be in any particular direction, so that golden focal point thing that’s not an official term, by the way. It’s just what I’m calling it right now, so we can reference it as we talk, since we don’t have any visuals here. That point can end up in one of four places just by flipping the Fibonacci grid around, and if the proportions of your canvas aren’t a perfect golden ratio right, they may not be rectangular. They may be square, they may be a long rectangle, whatever. You can actually just squish it or stretch it to fit and still use that same spot. And that same spiral. To find good places for your focal. Points and various. Comments keep in mind. These compositional grids and standards are not used in. A particularly precise. Way they are. Really loose guides. Focal points don’t have to land on the middle of the golden spiral or exactly where the lines cross on. The rule of. Thirds grid so you can eyeball it. Once you have a grasp of what? These grids do and. Then you can use your gut. Instincts, right? Man, I wish I could show you some examples as I talk. But well, you. Actually have this at your fingertips because our modern technology has given us easy access to it. Most smartphones have a grid overlay for the camera app, as do most tablets, and many of the common photo editing software programs. Almost all of them have. The rule of. Thirds grid and. Many will also have the golden ratio overlay with the golden spiral in it as well. You’ll have to look up online how to find them on your particular device, but then with those grids in place, frame your work or your sketches or whatever it is that you need. To assess in your camera. App take a picture if you need and. See where everything lands in those grids. There are other kinds of classical compositional techniques, such as triangular composition, where you have 3 focal points, usually a primary, and a couple of secondaries, that you triangulate. Usually you spread them out across the composition so that when viewers look at it, they kind of visually connect lines between them and they see that triangle. This is a really classic form of composition that was used a lot in like the Renaissance and a lot of religious paintings. So if you want to see examples, just put in triangular composition into Google and you’ll have exams. Come up. These compositions have a certain strength and solidity that reflects the strength of triangles. The triangle shape is known as the strongest of all shapes. So. It goes to. Reason that the triangular composition should also feel very strong. There’s also diagonal composition. It’s another common kind of classic composition. It can get a little wacky sometimes, but if you line up focal points in major elements in your work on diagonals, it creates a more dynamic composition. So if you want something with a lot of movement or drama, arrange things diagonally. And that doesn’t mean everything needs to be on the same diagonal line. But if you lay things out so that you can go from one important element to another in a kind of diagonal trajectory, and you can create more than one of these diagonals in your work. But what you’re doing is you’re developing relationships between various elements. On a diagonal line and invisible diagonal line, or maybe a visible diagonal line, but one or more diagonal lines that these things are on and we start seeing those. We start making the connection between the items and when you see the diagonal diagonal it has always been a very dynamic line that. Again, you can go online and find examples of this and you’ll see what I mean when I say this can get kind of wacky because. In some pieces. There’s diagonals going back and forth all through it, like it’s a freaking was like cats cradle thing that we did in grade school. But in any case, these things are guidelines that can help you. Figure out what might be wrong. Can help you nudge things around in your composition to line things up better and make it feel more balanced or comfortable. But again, use your instincts. We see versions of composition throughout nature throughout other artwork that we’re seeing, right. And we do take that in, even if not consciously. And you’ll have an instinct about it. So I’m thinking maybe this month you look at your artwork and look. At other people’s artwork and. Ask yourself where are the? Focal points and whether the composition is symmetrical or asymmetrical. See if you can find. Triangular composition or diagonal composition in any of the pieces that you’re analyzing. Just get familiar and comfortable with looking at the composition of work and if you do this all month, that instinctual sense that I think is already within you, I think you could really bring those forward into the surface. So then next time you try to translate something from your head into the real world for your artwork, that instinct. How good composition may help that translation quite a bit, and it’ll just be there waiting for you because you’ve practiced it because you’ve learned it like language. You’ve focused on it, you’ve concentrated on it, you’ve taken it in and it’s become part of how you see art. That is my wish and hope for you when it comes to some of this basic composition stuff. So next month we’ll actually do some more on composition. It’s really fun stuff that’s talking about how we lead the eye through the ways that we can do that. The ways you can recognize it and arrange things to make that happen. And I’ve just always been fascinated by the fact that we can. Kind of manipulate our viewer by doing this, so that’s something to look forward to again next month. It should be the first Friday of February. In the meantime, if you want to reach out to me with comments or questions. Please do so go. To the sagearts.com you can. Go to the. Contact page. There you can go to Facebook or Instagram and go to the Sage Arts podcast pages to direct message me or leave comments on posts. You can also if you really like what I’m doing here and you want to support it and you want to give back. I do have donation buttons. For buy me a coffee or pay. Now and PayPal has a way of doing regular donations, so you can just give a little bit every month if you like. We’ve got quite a number of people doing that now. Thank you all so much for doing that and helping me take care of my back end costs. And another way that you can help out is to hit the follow button on your podcast player. Not only is that a wonderful way for you to. Get notified when new episodes are out. But it also pushes us up on the search engines so. When people are looking for arts and creative. Podcasts we can grow. Our little community here. All right, I hope you enjoy looking at composition in the rest of this month. I think that will really feed. Your muse a lot and just. Go out and do new things as I always. Say be true to. Your weirdness, and I hope you join me next time on the Stage Arts podcast.

 

 

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1 thought on “eP.048 Exploring Design: Compositional Instinct”

  1. Kathleen Dustin

    The Composition podcast is EXCELLENT, Sage!!!!!!! My husband heard bits of it and he asked, “Is she a professor or something?!!”

    Another technique that is very comfortable for viewers is use of a horizon line, whether or not it’s used with the rule of thirds. It’s asymmetrical and symetric. I’ve used it from time to time.

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