How and why do you arrange the elements in your artwork the way you do? Sure, you can just put it down so it “looks good” but did you know that you can direct your viewer and add to the experience and feel of your work through intentional arrangements? With a few guidelines and an understanding of how people take in visual work, you can lead the viewer through your art to give them specific experiences and enrich what you are sharing with them.
In this episode, learn about some of these guiding principles, along with the how or why they work the way they do so you can assess how they contribute to great art along with discovering ways to use them to improve and polish your own work.
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CREDITS:
Cover design by Sage; Illustration by Olga Kostenko
Cover Art: Delicate Tension by Wassily Kandinsky
Music by Playsound
TRANSCRIPT:
Transcription (AI transcribed, unedited. Please excuse the copious errors.)
Wanting our viewers to spend a lot of time with our work, it’s affirming to us as artists, and it demonstrates the attractiveness and interest of our work. But more importantly, the longer they spend, the more they will observe and the more we will be heard…
Hello all my eager creatives out there. Thank you for joining me on the Sage Arts Podcast, Sage here ready to take you on an adventurous journey through the secret halls of come? Position. Yeah, well, I know that sounded a little. Bit dramatic but yeah. I started talking about composition in January and it was such a big subject that I divided into two parts. So this is kind of like the the really fun part, at least for me. I like all these tips and tricks and things that I’m going to share with you today and it’s going to be also kind of the how and why. Of arranging things in your composition. So come on in and join me in the studio here in the middle of shaky Lakey, California, or Shaky Lake, California. I think that’s why I’m calling it now. It’s my new name for our crazy area right now because. Between seven days of torrential rains and now just minutes ago, as I sat down to record, we had an earthquake that was centered like just a handful of miles South West of here. And I thought for sure something was gonna fall or break. It was very strong, but there were no reports of damage beyond some, like, fallen books. And maybe some wall cracks from some of the neighbors. So. Yeah, that was fun. And then just prior to this seven days straight of rain totals that in our area came to 7 inches of. Lane and there’s areas not that far, like literally 10 minutes down the road that got like 12 inches of rain. So we are waterlogged. So I don’t know if that affected the way the earthquake worked, maybe the usual sharp shaking and rolling. They usually tosses things around weren’t as strong cause with all this waterlogged land or I don’t know. I’m not sure if that’s even a thing. It’s just it was just kind of weird. It was strong, but everything was OK. I mean, I was scared. The poor puppy was scared. She came out of her crate and just hugged me. It was really. Money. But let’s just say Mother Nature has been a little dramatic over here. Our Creek outside is a Little River. It’s huge. It’s big, it’s actually nice and clear. Now. That’s had a couple of days to filter through. I took the puppy down and showed her her name saying no, the the Creek is not her namesake. Her name is river and she’s actually named. For this she has this river of white down the front of her forehead down her face, and she’s also partly named for the character on the show. Firefly, if you’re familiar with that one from back. And it was what a great show that was. I can’t believe they cancelled it. And everybody’s a fan will say the exact same thing, but they had a character named River on and who was kind of gymnastic and a little mysterious and very pretty and I. I think she’s like. That so any case River is a little subdued puppy today she got spayed yesterday, so she’s literally on drugs. But it’s good for her. Just she wasn’t handling it well yesterday, but she just resting up and Amber’s down the hall with Brett. Because basically, if Amber has any options besides to be with whoever’s with the puppy, that’s where she goes. Like, wherever the puppy’s not. So she’s just not a fan of the puppy energy. Of course, right now, there’s not a lot of puppy energy because she’s so worn out. But. I’m sure River will be back on her feet and trying to chomp on everything insight. In a day. Or two, but what I’m trying to say, it’s just me and river in here. And I moved this. Lounge thing. I may have mentioned this in some things before, but I really, truly believe that every creative space should have somewhere you can. I really believe that napping taking time out to rest just thinking is really important to the creative process. The lounge was in the main part of the studio. This little areas like 3 different little sections, offices, whatever, and we moved the lounge out of the main studio because I want to start doing large paintings, so I needed the space and I put in the podcast room. It takes up like a. Third of the podcast. Room. There is a whole sofa like thing. In here that you can all come in and sit down and join me on this nice and cozy, depending on how much personal space you need. Get like three or four people in here, so you know lots of space. Come join me. Let’s go hang out. And yeah, let me know how you’re doing. How is everything where you’re at? Have you been able to put in some good focused time in the studio accomplishing what you are intending to? Maybe the conversation last month on composition has got you thinking about how you layout your elements? And if you missed that episode, the episode was an overview of the concept of comp. Position with a few classic composition layouts. And if you need to listen to that episode or need to listen to it again, it is episode 48 entitled Compositional Instinct and yeah, I actually got quite a few comments about that episode, and I’m so glad you all enjoyed it. Some people sent me suggestions of other things we could talk about, one or two of which actually did have planned for this week. Coupling. Dustin did actually bring up the horizon line, which is something that’s very common in photography and landscape painting, and it’s basically a way of portioning your comps. Motion into a what’s above and below the horizon line. So basically if it’s larger or above the horizon line or larger below the horizon line, that’s the emphasized section of the composition, which makes sense because it’s bigger, right? But it can also be used to like draw everything towards it’s kind of essential if there’s a lot of perspective that you need to insert. Or because you want to, like allude to the perspective, so you can use a rise and. For that you might wanna look up Horizon line and composition and see how it works and and try that out and your compositional arrangements and then some people sent me links to other things like golden spirals and Fibonacci sequence mapping and that kind of thing. My favorite was when you Moore sent me a picture of. A wombat and then the golden spiral. Spiraling from his face down around his **** and into his leg joint. And it was very cute. But anyways, there’s so many examples of it out there and you could put the golden spiral on a lot of classic compositions and see how things come into that point where the spiral gets small, where the boxes get small like we talked about last week. Anyway, thank you everybody for getting excited about that, looking into it and sending me your thoughts and sharing the images that you found and then a quick apology because we had a bunch of technical issues and one that’s still not resolved this week. So if you were supposed to get the newsletter and you didn’t get it, it’s because there’s this weird authentication thing that we have not gotten. Resolved yet and still working on it, but hopefully we’ll have the newsletter out this week and I’ll include. Information from last week, as well As for this podcast and then the website also had some issues, but not the contact page. So if you you still want to reach out to me, you can still contact me through the sagearts.com contact page. You can also write to me about replying to any of the newsletters you’ve ever gotten from me, and if you want to sign up for the newsletter, you can find the news and notices. And on the homepage of sagearts.com. And as always, I really appreciate your support in the giving back that many of you do. If you want to be part of that, you can find a donation button for PayPal and buy me a coffee halfway down the homepage of the sagearts.com. And all of these links are in the. Option section or show notes of the podcast player through which you are listening to this. But yeah, let’s get back to this composition stuff. Last month wasn’t what I would consider a deep dive. The fact is, it’s really hard to do a deep dive on an audio format for a visual concept, but today we’re going to get into some more particular details, things that you can really sink your teeth into. Now, if you listen to the last months episode. Composition and maybe it didn’t all click. I’m hoping today it. Well, we’re going to talk a little bit more about what we are you spoke of and then get into these more particular things that you can actually do like really solid concepts as well as talk about the why and how of choosing A compositional layout. Now the class of composition items I’ve introduced so far. You need to think of them as possible guidelines or starting points for planning the layout of your design elements. I just want you to keep in mind that all this is really just a suggestion. Their ideas, they’re ways to get you started on your composition. Because this this is not a science, it’s art. That means this is really about your vision. Your choices. You as the artistic mastermind, choosing how you want your work to look. So there’s no hard and fast rules here, but it’s kind of a place to start. Strangely, I’m going to suggest that you don’t start with grids or guidelines of visual cues or any of that stuff. I actually suggest that when you’re starting out in composition that you turn to words. Now, if you’ve been with me for a while, you may recall that I am. A big proponent for verbalizing your. Visuals. Now I know using words is not for everyone. A lot of you just want to be visual. Brett is a very visual person and words aren’t always what comes to him when he’s doing these kinds of things. But I know that even the most die hard visualists can really benefit from just calling out like a few. Objectives or concepts, or a whisper of a story to describe the intention and to guide all of these design choices that you have. I find this particularly useful in composition because we’re talking big picture here. We’re talking the skeleton of the whole piece, the structure and the bones on which your visuals are laid out. Now words can easily provide this structure, which is why I suggest them, and they don’t have to be a lot of words. Your structure can hang off of just one word, but words are a lot more exacting and they give you a really good grounding for the concepts and your intention that you’re trying to put out there or what is that you’re trying to share now, where are you going to find this? Word or these words? Well, you’re going to find them in your intention, of course. So if you jot down a few words to flesh out your intention, everything, every decision that you make after that can be hung off of that, especially when it comes to composition. Now, mind you, some of you will be very good at figuring out composition through instinct, and that’s fine. And it’s great. But if you get to the end. And you have some unsatisfactory aspects. Maybe there’s a lack of cohesiveness or a disparity between a few of the elements. Having those words can actually help you analyze the work to see if every element is in service of those thoughts and ideas your chosen words represent. Then you change things to fall in line with what those words need them to be, right? In composition, arrangement is a way of creating the right kind of atmosphere. Really the elements and principles in there should support and fill out what the composition sets up. So for example, if the words ideas or story you have in mind has to do with something like travel and speed, you’ll want an arrangement that helps you build an atmosphere of probably movement. So you can arrange things in diagonals which are very dynamic, and that gives you dynamic bones for the directional lines. Progressive rhythms are good, energetic. Colors, whatever you choose to work with. If your intentions involve, say, calm, you might look to composing horizontally. May be rooted in a horizontal line in the rule of thirds grid thing, going evenly through the center might be a bit too calm and can feel stagnant, but a horizontal line. Elevated or lowered? Can give people a sense of calm as well as emphasizing where the majority of your compositional. Focus should be and these choices can all be derived and rooted in the word words or story that you have. So those are. Just a few examples of how you work with words or some version of verbalization for the structure of your. Position, even if you’re reticent to try to use words because you think I just want to do everything visually, just give it a whirl. You might find it extremely useful, and again, it can be one word. It doesn’t have to be a lot of words. It’s just something upon which you can continuously analyze your work, especially when it comes to keeping focused on your intention. And as I mentioned, I believe in the last month. Episode on design. Choosing A composition is deeply rooted in intention. I mean, what isn’t really? However, there is another consideration that, although it is still steered by intention, is usually about holding on to your viewers attention, so you have time to communicate your ideas and your stories or your aesthetics as well as adding to the atmosphere the work through this kind of journey that you’re going to give. What I’m talking about is commonly referred to as leading the eye. This is the path that the viewer’s eye will take through your work, a purposeful visual journey around your piece, especially if it allows the viewer to take in all the elements you’ve created, adds to a sense of cohesiveness and intention, and that it helps the many elements feel purposeful. Plus, you can make their journey through the work fast or slow, or flowing or erratic or calm or tension filled, and this will add to the overall feel of the work while supporting the intended effect. The individual elements were chosen. To do this, you commonly arrange your hierarchy of focal points or elements of interest. If you prefer to lead a viewer around to different areas of your piece, a viewer will usually take things in from what is perceived as the most important element, and then move on to lesser elements, giving you a controllable. Path to lead them through. You can also use lines and shapes to make more literal paths as our eyes like to follow lines and edges of shapes. We’ve learned that in episode 35, which was the lesson about line in 39, which was the lesson on shape. So you can go back and review those. Knowing this, you can determine where your viewer will look first by creating a primary focal point with one of your elements, or sometimes a grouping of elements, because as a group they are seen as one thing. And so that’s. The starting point of your viewers journey and you lead them around through a hierarchy of items through your. For instance, you can start them on some irresistible focal point, like a red dot is always like, really draws the eye a face like we’ve talked about before. And then with that as your starting point, you can lead them through in a variety of ways, like smoothly on a kind of a curve where moving from one element to the next feels very unimpeded, like flowing. Natural, which should communicate like calm and ease or peace. You could alternately have them energetically hopping around from one section to another to build on the idea of enthusiasm or fun or joy and that kind of thing. Or you can quickly shoot them from one side to the other on a single straight line or series of straight lines which can convey determination, strength or force. That kind of thing. And I’ll be hammering these ideas into your eager little minds as you delve through the upcoming lessons on principles of design. The principles will not only help you communicate your intention. But they can be manipulated to assist you in leading a viewer’s eye through. Your piece, but for now we’ll look at this as its own thing as composition as its own thing, and then just know that there will be ways to tweak it and reinforce what you’re trying to do with these other tools that we will be talking about as the year progresses. Now I bet. There’s a question in your mind about how do you choose your arrangements? Well, like I said, your intention. Should lead that and then I’ve given you some general examples about the kind of considerations you would have as you devise your arrangement. But let me give you some tips on things that are generally true about the arrangements that you make. And as I keep trying to impress upon you. These guidelines or whatever, they’re not rules really. They’re more of tendencies that you’ll find that viewers see the work through, so take them or leave them. But if you feel kind of lost in this world of arrangement and composition, you can use these guidelines. I’m gonna give you and then you can change them up as you become instinctively more comfortable with. Creating your compositional arrangements and leading the viewer’s eyes through the work, and I’m gonna give you some. Examples of kind of exceptions to the guidelines or reasons why you wouldn’t do those particular guidelines as they go through these and I apologize, there’s a lot of Gray area for this because it’s art. I think I said this already, maybe you’ll probably say it again. It’s art. It’s not science, it’s not exact. So these are just things to think about, right, OK. So let’s first talk about composition. An edge the edge of your work, whatever that defining space is in which your work exists, is both a boundary and a design element for your composite. Because the edge defines the space the viewer expects, all the things that they need that you are giving them in the work is actually within those boundaries. That’s kind of like the default expectation, but strangely enough, you can actually make reference to things outside of that boundary quite easily, and it’s done a lot. I know I do it a lot. This is not always a good thing. But it’s a tool and it’s a potential tool depending on the message for the experience that you want the viewer to have. So let’s start with the position of wanting our viewers to spend a lot of time with their work. This is is something most of. Us probably wish. For because for one, it’s affirming to us as artists, and it demonstrates the attractiveness. An interest of our work, but more importantly the longer they spend with our work, the more they will observe and the more we will be heard. So to keep them looking, it helps not to lead them off the edge of your canvas, outside the boundaries of your. Again, this is not always true though, because leaving them off outside of the existing space that the work existing can allude to there being a lot more for them to explore beyond what you’re offering them. But if you want them to stay within the boundaries of your work, you don’t want elements that direct them towards and off the edge of your work. This happens when you have incomplete but implied shapes or lines that exist on the edge of your piece. When we see something incomplete or have a line that goes off the edge, our minds will try to complete what isn’t showing. And as mentioned, this is great if you want to direct the viewer to consider how the piece is connected to like. The wider world or whatnot. But if you want them to stay within the world that you created, you don’t want items that lead off the edge or are incomplete. However, if you do leave the viewers eyes off the canvas, you might want something to bring them back. You can do that through a hierarchy of focal points or a hierarchy of directional. Elements like one line may go off the edge or an incomplete shape may be at the edge and maybe those dominate the viewer’s interest initially. But if you have other line shapes or other elements that might be something to haven’t explored in your hierarchy in the flow and path that you’ve given them through. Artwork they could be drawn back for the things that they’ve missed, especially if there’s some sort of line that leads them back from the edge back into the work, like curved lines. Or curved or. Folded objects that turn in on themselves, like snakes or spirals, so that in the process of mentally trying to complete them we actually curve back. Into the campus or within the boundaries of your work. So that way you can kind of get your cake and eat it too. You can eat them off the canvas and then you can bring them back into the canvas to have them further explore what it is that you’re doing. Another thing that can have edge come into play is what I like to call just forward facing elements so it could be a face or it could just be eyes and these will be the strongest of this kind of element. So when you have those looking somewhere in your piece, if the gaze is looking inwards and not towards like the closest edge which would be looking off of the. With those should be able to keep the viewer in because we like to follow the gazes we like to follow, where someone is looking. Just like if you’re on the street and someone’s looking up, we all like to look up because we want to see what they’re looking at. If you are of your work will basically do the same thing, they’ll follow the face wherever it’s looking in the eyes, wherever it’s looking, and that could lead them. Off the edge, and if that’s not something you want, then you. Want them to? Be looking inwards or at a particular object within the space so that the viewer looks from the gaze of the face or the eyes, and at that thing. And this is the same for anything that has like a front facing. Part to it. So like a house or a computer screen or a television has a front that we would like. To have face. Forward or a kitchen appliance or a book. Even we have an understanding that certain things will face forward so that they are seen as intended. But if you have imagery with some of these things that have a front facing side and they’re not facing the viewer or. Inward, it’s something that exists within the boundaries of your piece that could lead them off the edge, and sometimes it does also work if it’s looking upwards or downwards. Those are just as strong a pull for us to feel like we’re leaving. Canvas but it is very persuasive when the orientation leads them off the edge left or right especially right, which we’re going to talk about in just a second. So that’s one trick for keeping viewers inside the composition, if that’s what you’re aiming. To do this next tip. May be more relevant to the Western world, or anywhere that reading is done left to right. And you know, that sounds like it would not be related to art and how we view it, but if you think about it for a second, we commonly look at things going from left to right, at least in the Western world. And English speaking countries for sure. It’s very instinctual because of that important elements, focal points and. Particular tend to do better when they are set off to the right, if not being centered, of course, or if they are facing to the right. If they exist on the left. The real take away on this is that commonly you don’t want to have the most interesting part of your work on the left hand side, because as we look across going from left to right. All the interesting stuff is on the left. Then we go to the right and there’s really not anything there and then we could kind of lose interest and may not want to visually move around the work and look for anything more. And it may also feel incomplete. However, like I said, there are exceptions to all. And this is actually something I do a lot of. The majority of my photography, especially if it’s zeroed in on a very particular item. My macro photography in particular the bulk of my imagery actually is on the left, but all of my lines coming from that imagery direct towards the right. There’s a lot of movement and directional insistence. On those lines and I use that to talk to people about what these things are in the bigger world because it’s. Macro and I’m showing them something I don’t usually see. I want them to think about the bigger world that this thing exists in, so I do this very purposefully in my composition. So yes, putting. Stuff on the left side can work, but if you are trying to keep people within the boundaries, you probably want something on the right hand side that’s going to grab and hold them and send them back through your piece. And lead the viewer’s eye around so it could be on the right hand side. It could send them back to the left hand side, at which point they will scan again from left to right. And I actually shouldn’t say just left because you can direct them upwards or downwards or into the corners if you’re trying to get them to kind of bounce around your work, have something juicy on the right hand side to anchor them and to kind of give them a place of of rootedness and completeness. And at least the consideration that the entire composition had been intentionally. Right. But as I said, I suspect this right hand side thing is largely a Western world phenomenon. I do wonder and I tried to research this, but I didn’t come up with anything. If there is a preference in other countries where they read right to left or top to bottom, if they’d like things to be arranged so that the most interesting parts are also opposite of where they start reading. I just find it interesting to think about and then I have one more for you and this one is not so much about the arrangements. Not exactly, but it does have a bearing on it. It is usually referred to as the rule of odds. Now the so-called rule suggests that an odd number of objects or elements or imagery. Are going to be more interesting than an even number. It’s considered part of composition because the arrangement of the number of elements is where this preference for odd numbers really shows itself. So just think of placing like 2 gems on appendant. How do you arrange two in an interesting way? Now there are ways to do this, but they’re not particularly energetic, and if it’s just too, they’ll be vying for attention no matter where they. They are so neither 1 can be the primary focal point unless they are significantly differentiated like by sides or the intensity of the color or the complexity or something of that sort. But then we’re not going to count them as two items. We’re going to count them as separate items, one here and one here, right. So they’re in categories by themselves because they be that differentiated. So even numbers. It’s just that they feel like there’s too much balance. Like there’s not enough tension or energy because of the evenness of the number of objects. And again, you may want to eliminate tension and have everything very calm, so even numbers might work for you, so it’s not a hard and. Fast rule but. Think about placing 3 gems on a pendant instead of 2-3 can create. A line that has some substance, a triangle or an irregular grouping in one corner of the piece, that kind of thing. There’s a myriad of ways to arrange three that are not really open to just two, because they all inform each other. The three inform each other in the way those two don’t really, at least not in a particularly strong manner. Extend this mental exercise. Into, say placing 4. Two gems versus 5 gems, right? So we’re still doing even than not. Although there are a lot more interesting ways to arrange 4 gems than just two, even though they’re both even. Five is going to. Be far more interesting, and it’s that one odd out item that creates the interest in the energy. Like you see two couples out having dinner. So it’s 4. People and it just feels normal. It’s not overly interesting. Nothing you really think about? But if there’s a couple and a single person and they’re dining together, then you might start wondering about the dynamic between them all, because why is that single person hanging out with a couple? Isn’t that kind of awkward? Basically, there’s a possible story there when things aren’t well balanced and that echoes the whole idea of stories and movies and shows, they all have conflict, right? We are interested in the conflict if they didn’t have conflict, we wouldn’t watch them. So the odd numbers develop a very subtle conflict because there isn’t a complete balance with evenness of items on either side of a piece or however it is arranged. And then there’s the fact that when you have an even number, no one of them can be central, right? Not usually. Not again, unless you really differentiate one of them. But then that one that’s differentiated is no longer part of those groups of three that actually are like. So if you have five of the same thing and. Let’s just put them in a line because that’s. Easiest one to imagine. The one in the middle. It is the center of that array. And it automatically gets some importance, so the odd numbers also. Allow you to. Put an emphasis on the centered item. Very subtly. Or you can do very little. To it to make it the central focus point, like maybe a line goes through that particular gem and not the two on the sides of it. And that little variation in the background will draw. RI to the already important center. Item you can’t readily emphasize an even number of gems because if you had four lined up, it’s just an empty space. Is the center right? So odd just has a lot more opportunities. It has a lot more energy. It has a potential for more drama that we kind of read into it because of its lack of symmetrical balance. And as a further example, I don’t know if you noticed, but I just gave you 3. Little tips, not 2, not 4. I gave you 3 and if I did more than three, I’d probably try to do 5. This is actually kind of drilled into me in my freelance writing and journalism part of my career as well. So the numbers, it’s not just visual. We do it in other things as well. In fact, if you’re a member in school, when you wrote an essay, you’re supposed to have three supporting points for your thesis statement and three paragraphs. To support those points. So everything was done in odd numbers there too. Yeah, it’s it’s everywhere. This rule of odd. And as you might have guessed, I don’t like the fact that it’s called a rule because again, it’s not. A rule that is. Steadfast that you always have to do, you can break it. There are reasons why you might want to use even numbers. You know. You decide what your intention needs to be fed by in terms of your choices, right? And I really do hope that you get comfortable with exploring compositional arrangement. Through some of these little tips, but I hope you’ll stop and break some of them down the line and choose how to create the kind of journey you want your viewer to take with or without those guidelines or those classical grids I gave you last month, or any of the things that we talked about in terms of. Designed because this is creative work, it is you trying to figure out what you need to say and what elements are choices will support that decision. So basically these ideas are worth experimenting with. Just don’t let them block you from experimenting beyond them. And I also hope you don’t spend a lot of conscious. Time during your designing process, during your creative process, thinking about these things in specific terms, I think we all have a really good innate sense of what works and what does. And sometimes when we overthink it with all these rules and things hanging out in our heads that we might get too purposeful in a too literal way and it will kind of depend on you and your personality and how you like to work. But my suggestion is usually to go by instinct first. If you spend time looking at good artwork and. And trying to figure out why they did the things they did and why it worked or why it didn’t work. Then you will develop an In Sync and then you don’t have to have those things in there with you when you’re trying to get into flow and just trying to create from your inner core, right and. Then these things that you have learned, these things that I’m teaching you, they come in later. So no while. You’re making it. Don’t think about whether your lines are really directional or the textures have ton of contrast or anything like that. If if it’s really getting in the way. If you just being able to create and make decisions like fluidly just when you’re done. You look at your work and if you see something that needs to be adjusted or corrected or tweaked or polished, you have this information to bring out and say, hey, I feel like something’s missing in the way this is arranged. What can I look at? What kind of rules or guidelines can I use to analyze what I’ve done and see where I can make it better where I can bring in improvement because as strongly as I feel about the role of our instincts, it doesn’t always hit the mark and then sometimes our logical brains get in the way or something that we saw that. Someone else said. Kind of sneaks in and we’re trying. To be too. Much like them, instead of just listening to our inner. Voices. So play, experiment, be curious, and then bring these things out when you are doing your polishing work and you’re editing your fixing work or when you get stumped or any of those times where this kind of knowledge can really come in and help you break through whatever it is that doesn’t seem to be working for you. Now that you know a bit more about. Composition. You have some really specific things to work with. I do want to suggest that you pull out some of your own pieces or look at work from some of your favorite. And make note of where you first look when you look at them and then what do you look at next and then what do you look at afterwards and see if you can find the path that was created and ask yourself how following that path feels. Is there a specific emotion that that journey gives you an atmosphere that it adds to the piece? And just becoming more aware of this is something that will actually inform your artwork and really concrete these ideas for you and can really contribute to your understanding and implementation of these concepts of. Position. So why don’t you spend the rest of February focusing on finding those little things in people’s composition C if they are putting things off to the right C if they’re sending you off of the canvas or off of the space and outside the boundaries. And if they bring you back, ask yourself those questions as. You look at. Your work as well as other people. ‘S work find compositions. That really speak to you and maybe you can start working some of the ideas that you’re finding in other people’s works as composition, not as imagery, not as their their kind of designs and their style. You need to work with your own. But you can take some of those things that they do and say, hey, I want to try that. I want to explore that in my own work and bring it in the studio and. Try it out and. If you are at all up for sketching, and even if you’re not, maybe you should try it anyways. Pencil the paper man, I am telling you, trying to sketch out compositions, trying to figure out how to arrange your stuff on paper. Even though I guarantee you it will not look like that when you actually make the piece and those of you who do sketch out your work before you actually do it, you know. What I mean it’s going to help you think it through. It’s going to help you identify your intention and how to make that manifest in your work in a very purposeful and intentional way. So that’s your February assignment. And I feel like I’m missing something. I. Have to. I’d say I’m a little sleep deprived these days. Having a puppy is like having a baby. You’re up all the time. So if I remember any of those things, I think. I forgot. I’ll bring them up in upcoming episodes, hopefully this month, and then the next thing I want to talk about is going to be color. Oh my gosh, so much fun and so much to it. I think it’s going to be like a three parter. Could even be a four parter. We’ll see. But that’s something to look forward to. Oh, and by the way, if you think I missed something that I should tell the audience here. Write me at the sagearts.com on the contact page, again Instagram or Facebook. I will get those direct messages or the message. On the post and if you want to support this podcast, I so appreciate you giving back and you can do that through the buy me a coffee and PayPal donation buttons halfway down the homepage of the sagearts.com and for my newsletter people. I’m sure we’ll get one out this weekend. We’ve been working on it all week and if you haven’t already signed up for the newsletter it. Usually notifies you when the episode comes out any extra material. What I have I put in there and it’s usually easily downloadable from there. Sign up for that with the news and notice this button on the homepage of the sagearts.com website. And if you haven’t already done so, please hit that follow button on your podcast player wherever you are listening to this podcast from, including YouTube. So the podcast is on YouTube now. It’s just a video of a sound. Wave with the podcast running in the background button. In case some people don’t like to switch around, the different platforms are on. So if you are on YouTube a lot, then you. Can find those. Podcasts. The first half of them at least, are posted right now at the Sage Arts Podcast on YouTube. And then, yeah, I do hope you get out and look at a lot of different types of artwork, and this might be a good excuse to get out to galleries or museums or. For book shops, we can look at art books, but in any case get out there and feed that Muse. Listen to and stay. True to your weirdness and then join me. Again, next time on the. Sage Arts podcast.
