12 Absolutely Vital Points for

Strong Composition and Design

These are the most essential dot points on what an artist needs to learn when developing strong compositional design skills. See the full MODULE on this subject when you are ready for a deep dive.

1. HAVE A STORY TO TELL

Just like the author of a book or a poet, a fine artist needs to engage and hold the viewer’s interest, except that this is done visually with their drawing or painting, rather than with oral or written language. Deciding which features need to be kept and which are to be discarded in the original shape plan is crucial in crystallising the message within the artwork. Every element can be utilised with YOUR main message in mind. 

Learn the elements of Composition and Design and consider how each can serve your goal ie. line, shape, space, form, value, colour, texture

2. DECIDE AT THE BEGINNING WHAT IS YOUR FOCAL POINT AND ANY CENTRE(S) OF INTEREST

Ascertain clearly at the beginning of your planning stages what will be the focal point and gear all of your usage of the elements and principles of design around bringing the viewer  towards this crescendo (like a climax in a novel, or a chorus in a piece of music.)

3. KNOW THE PRINCIPLES OR GOALS OF COMPOSITION AND DESIGN

You need to be using your tools (elements) to achieve your design goals (principles).

Balance, Rhythm, Unity, Contrast, Harmony, Variety, Proportion (+perspective)

4. LEAD YOUR VIEWERS THROUGH YOUR VISUAL STORY

Creating relationships within these main elements can assist you to fulfil the principles (or goals) of design:

You can control the visual journey of your viewers with leading lines, variety in intervals (of all elements), depth perspective, carefully placed contrast etc. Learn and use compositional guides such as the Rule of Thirds, Golden mean, and Fibonacci spiral when appropriate (they are not

hard and fast rules nor written in stone, but very helpful guides to build into your compositional processes).

5. LEARN HOW THE RULES AND GUIDELINES HELP YOU

As Picasso is famously quoted as saying ‘Learn the rules like a pro, then break them like an artist'. 

Fumbling your way through without any knowledge of tried and tested guidelines is no way to achieve your best results in compositional design.

The Rule of Thirds (as one example)  works because it assists the artist in making one element stand out from it’s surroundings. This dominance or difference is created with the princple of variety, and a variation of any sort will always attract the viewer's eye.(varying intervals in line, shape, space, colour, temperature, (in fact any of the elements) creates a strong path to follow).

6. CREATE SMALL THUMBNAILS FOR A SHAPE PLAN, A VALUE PLAN AND COLOUR PLAN

Use small thumbnails to create simple plans for shapes, values and colour. This way, you can get ahead of any accidental 

issues that may arise as you are working through your piece (lines leading the viewer OUT, heavy imbalance, boring arrangement,

proportional issues, lack of your intended mood etc).

7. USE SIMPLE GEOMETRIC OR FAMILIAR  SHAPES TO PLAN YOUR VALUE PATTERN AROUND

Triangles, letter shapes (eg S, T, H, C, X) can be used (asymmetrically) to plan your arrangement and general value pattern (or notan) around.

If you squint at your little value thumbnail and the overall dark shapes are somewhat connected and either dominate the light area or are subservient to the light area, you can move forward with your plan knowing that you have already succeeded in creating some variety and asymmetrical balance. Value contrast is considered by many artists to be the most powerful leader of the eye. (save your strongest darks and lights to be juxtaposed alongside each other at focal points, to keep the interest most there).

8. USE THE FORMAT AND RATIO THAT WORKS BEST FOR YOUR IDEA OR CONCEPT

Choose the best format of canvas or paper to give the ideal frame of reference for your particular visual story.

eg. a vertical (portrait) format in a larger size could lend a piece somewhat of a punctuation mark for what

you are expressing. A panoramic format is great for expensive and impressive views, realistic or abstract.

9. ASYMMETRICAL SYMMETRY IS YOUR FRIEND IN FINE ART

Various forms of balance can be achieved with symmetry or asymmetry eg. radial balance (ie. great for mandalas, rugs and charts etc.), symmetrical balance (great for doona covers, wallpaper design, etc) but in a fine art piece, the principles of balance and rhythm are best achieved through asymmetric design. (in realism, surrealism, figurative and illustrative art more so than in abstract art where repetitive expression is sometimes used more.)

10. REMEMBER THAT THERE ARE SEVERAL KINDS OF LINES

When we use lines to lead the eye, these could be not just a linear mark or contour, they could also be a boundary line (eg. between temperatures or values), an implied line (edges and contours aligning to direct the eye a certain way), a psychic line (a subject’s line of sight leading us to look that direction). A strong composition makes good use of leading lines of all kinds.

11. THREE IS YOUR NEW FAVOURITE NUMBER

Not only is the rule of thirds helpful in achieving some of these compositional goals, but a 3 value notan has long been a strong value pattern guide used by great artists for centuries to define foreground, middle distance and background. In addition for defining a shape to transform it into a 3D form, 3 values are usually the minimum for an effective result.

10. CLEVER USE OF COLOR IS POWERFUL IN COMPOSITION

A whole other area of creative study will reveal the best ways that you can harness colour relationships and the three dimensions of colour (hue, value, chroma). Forming your own ‘palette’(s) is a powerful skill and for those who seek it, can give a unique and recognisable look to your artworks.

11. ANGLES AND VIEWPOINTS

Sometimes underestimated as a compositional tool, the angle or viewpoint at which the viewer takes in the scene can be adjusted in ways that

create drama, mystery and other expressions of mood or ambience.

12. THE GESTALT - LOOK AT THE WHOLE

A German word for “the unified whole”, the Gestalt has a lot to do with perceptual organization. There are laws and principles for design surrounding this concept, originally devised by two German psychologists. These laws address the natural compulsion for humans to find order in disorder. According to them, the mind “informs” what the eye sees by perceiving a series of individual elements as a whole (used extensively in web and graphic design, these principles are also useful to fine artists when planning compositions).

A. FIGURE/GROUND

The human mind tends to separate figures from their backgrounds. The differences can be heightened and encouraged by utilizing a number of different techniques which can include various forms of contrast, relative proportions, perspective etc. and any other differences from subject to background.

B. SIMILARITY

In this area, Gestalt theory states that the viewer tends to group together objects that have similar elemental characteristics such as shape, size, value, colour and texture. 

C. PROXIMITY

Referring to how close elements are in a composition, proximity can also be referred to as a kind of grouping which is like similarity. There is a difference between similarity and proximity in that the objects don't need to all be the same size in order to be grouped together by the brain. Grouping can be achieved by common shape, colour, tone, or shared space.

D. CLOSURE

Closure is the suggestion that the brain will fill in any extraneous information which is not actually included in the image. This is a common strategy used by both painters as well as designers. Negative spaces and visual blocks assist in this technique.

E. CONTINUITY

Gestalt laws propose that the eyes will continue to look in the direction in which they are taken by the elements (lines, shapes, spaces, forms, colours, values, textures) within the composition. So rhythms created by similar elements strategically placed can lead the eye through, returning to the focal point as the creative intends.

F. SYMMETRY AND ORDER

Balance can be achieved throughout the composition without repeating an element in exactly the same way, and yet through asymmetrical balance, the artist is creating an orderly journey through the story for the viewer to “read” (hopefully without getting bored).