Part 4

This part covers some basic ideas associated with design and composition. It also contains some miscellaneous topics that we wanted to include in the program and are therefore collected herein.

Table of Contents

• The Principles of Design
• Form
• Light
• Composition
• Space
• Use of Design Elements
• Personal Marks and Surfaces
• Change of Scale
• Parting Thoughts

The Principles of Design

The following principles constitute the basis of design of any work of art. The first set of principles we call form and constitutes the kinds of marks we can make on a surface. As such, these individual elements composed together along with any areas or spaces constitute a complete image.

The second set of elements describes the way in which we apply the property of colour to the elements of form.

The third set of elements categorizes ways of arranging elements of form with colour, together in a complete image or composition.

Form – Compositional Elements

• Shape: These are larger or broad areas of the surface that constitute a visual unit. As such, the shape will usually have a boundary, possibly a sharp edge or possibly a soft transition that implies an edge. The edge of a shape may be indicated by a line. An edge that is broken in a manner that the missing parts must be visually inferred is called a lost edge. The area of the surface inside the boundary is called the shape’s interior.

A shape may have various characterizations. For example, it may be regular such as with geometric objects, or irregular or organic where the boundaries are irregular, broken or indistinct.

Shapes chosen and their relative arrangement or composition affect our inference of spatial depth and so are constrained to some degree if spatial depth is to be preserved. For example, two shapes such as people that are clearly similar but different in size must be constrained so that the smaller appears farther back to preserve the illusion of depth. In a flat space, shape is unconstrained.

Finally, shapes may be composite, composed of smaller shapes that overlap or interlock.

• Line: These may be thought of more as directional marks on the surface than as areas of the surface. Lines may vary in thickness or width. There is no definitive way of distinguishing a broad line from a narrow shape. It becomes a judgment call. Some names associated with different directional characteristics of lines are horizontal, vertical and diagonal. Other names can be descriptive of a visual characteristic such as zigzag, angular, rounded and fragmented.

• Pattern/texture: An arrangement of lines or shapes, often having similar size or other characteristics. When they are larger and distributed over a larger part of the surface as element with sharp edges and little or no interior information, especially with a degree of repetitiveness, they are called pattern. When they are smaller and confined to a particular region of the surface as for example, the interior of a shape, they are called a texture.

  Both pattern and texture create a sense of busyness, both locally where they occur in the image and possibly from the viewpoint of the image in its entirety. They also tend to be used in very flat visual spaces.

Light

• Colour: of all the elements of design, color is the most widely studied and written about. We will discuss it in separate articles but mention here that it has two important characteristics, hue, which identifies the colour such as “red”, and temperature, which expresses whether a colour is considered as warm or cool.

• Value: This refers to the lightness or darkness of a colour.

• Brightness or Chroma: usually, the purer a colour (pigment), the more intense and brighter the colour appears. The opposite is easily understood when we think of a mixture of colours often as dull or muddy.

Composition

As we add elements to an image, we become concerned about their relative placement or composition. Minor changes in placement can have a major impact on the appearance of a work. To guide us in our consideration, the following principles of composition may be useful.

• Unity: Do all the elements work well together? Are there elements that appear awkward or out of place among their neighbours such as a shape or colour that unfavorably dominates or appears weak?

• Rhythm: Rhythm is achieved by the visual interaction of the placement of elements relative to each other. It may be smooth, broken or interrupted, but should generate some sense of working together. We might apply adjectives that describe the rhythm of a work as lyrical, staccato, interrupted, irregular and many others.

• Direction: Direction is innate in linear elements and elongated shapes. Elements with a horizontal direction or orientation have a sense of restfulness or low energy. Vertical elements have a fixed characteristic. The sense of being able to move in a horizontal direction is greater than in a vertical direction. This may be due to the psychological effects of gravity and spatial orientation in the real world. Diagonal lines create a strong sense of movement in a painting.

• Movement: Does the placement of elements create a rhythm that moves the observer around the image or does it abruptly stop the viewer causing confusion or discomfort in the viewing process? Movement in nature is caused when a force acts. In paintings, imbalances in mass coupled with direction cause our eyes to move. As noted, diagonal elements whether literal or implied, such as a directional line hinted by a few bushes and a break in a tree line in a landscape, create a strong tendency for the viewer's attention to be moved around.

• Balance: It is no accident that the orientation of a piece of standard office paper is referred to as either portrait or landscape. These characterize two dominant visual characteristics that are hard-wired into the human brain.

  The first object a baby identifies is its mothers face. We learn to perceive the smallest characteristics and change in expression of the human face. Vertical symmetry is a defining characteristic and we are acutely sensitive to any imbalance in this symmetry. Hence, the horizontal distribution and arrangements, particularly their mass, of elements in a vertical painting are critical. Whether it is blobs in an abstract or rocks in a landscape, be aware of this.

  We live in a world where, fortunately or unfortunately, gravity reigns. Also, the colour and textural characteristics of sky (which is always on top of our imagery) is different from that of whatever ground features exist between us and the horizon. In a landscape mode, we seek more mass on the bottom to ground our sensibilities. Good (I will define good as meaning comfortable) balance in a landscape has an asymmetrical vertical distribution of mass.

• Mass: Mass is an innate property of elements that we commonly describe as weight. We will use the terms interchangeably. Other synonyms might be dominance and amount or quantity. We can refer to the mass of a shape meaning its size relative to other elements. We can speak of the mass of a colour meaning the amount of that colour relative to other colours. Mass can be measured or assessed both relative to other elements or to the composition as a whole.

• Variety. We find images with variation or variety among design elements more interesting than those that have none. Variety should not only exist with a compositional element or characteristic but among different ones. As an example, if the value structure of an image is close, get variety by altering the temperature a of adjacent colours.

Space

Space is the ground when we talk about the figure/ground relationship in a work of art. This fundamental dualism is the basis of it all according to Alex Powers.

There are a number of properties of image construction that contribute to the perception of spatial depth in the image. The following are generalities. Sometimes we create situations where a specific spatial principle breaks down, particularly when several are in play.

• Temperature. Warm colours move forward; cool colours recede.

• Chroma. Hi chroma colours move forward; neutralized or tonal colours recede.

• Value. Strong values closest to black or white move forward, whereas middle values recede. This is a dominance effect.

• Information or detail. Areas or elements with a lot of information move forward, whereas quiet areas recede. This is characteristic of areas of pattern or texture. This is also a dominance effect.

• Singularity. Elements which have a singular property, that is one not present elsewhere to any significant degree in the image move forward, another dominance effect.

• Visual dominance. In general, we are hardwired to respond to certain properties of what we see. Edge recognition and the recognition of lines is hard wired into our visual precessing system. We automatically respond to figurative elements that we associate with human activity. In others words, information engages our attention as we attempt to decipher it. The overall effect is the area of an image with high information attracts our attention and all other areas recede. This visual dominance creates a certain degree of spatial ordering and inferred spatial depth.

• Perspective. When we construct elements in our art according to the principles of perspective we create a powerful illusion of depth. One immediate result is size relationship. Two similar elements such as human figures of different sizes will cause a sense of spatial depth when placed properly relative to each other.

As an artist, we must decide what kind of spatial depth we want in a work. A characteristic of much 20th century art is the deliberate flattening of the image space. Particularly in abstract and non-objective art, other characteristics of the image are the dominant  concern and space is ignored or deliberately flattened to enhance these characteristics.

For more thoughts on space read this note.

Use of Design Elements

Some general rules apply to the use of design elements. Their use facilitates the construction of a pleasing image. The novice artist benefits by learning how to apply these rules to their compositions. The advanced artist benefits by intentionally breaking them to achieve a goal.

• Focal point: Usually a focal point adds strength to a work. Its effect can be dominating, in that the attention moves from the point with the utmost difficulty, or subtle such that the attention wanders or moves around but can always come back to rest at this spot.

• Variety: Varying the application of each element helps introduces interest in a painting. Vary the size and geometry of shapes, lines and textures. Vary the use of colours and value or any other compositional element described under Form and Light above.

• Contrast: Arranging two elements together that are quite different in their range of expression creates a focal point. A large shape next to a small one, a dark value next to a light one and adjacent complementary colours are all examples of this rule.

• Movement: The arrangement of elements in a manner that leads the eye around the composition. Directional lines and edges are an obvious example. Implied lines are more subtle and often more satisfying. Repetition of shapes, colours and/or textures form subtle connections that direct our attention. One goal is to help the eye to keep moving rather than to focus on a single element and remain there. Another goal is to control the eye movement, of how the viewer responds to the image.

  Another generator of movement is empty space. When there are large empty or sparsely populated areas, the eye begins to search for solidity and content that can anchor its frame of reference. The eye may also seek an empty area as a respite from the activity and busyness of other areas.

• Proportion: Are the proportions of shapes and lines satisfying relative to each other and the overall surface, i.e. not too big or too small. Is the overall use of one kind of an element such as colour or texture in good proportion to other kinds of the same element? For example, considering the element colour, is the amount of red in a work appropriate for the amount of each of the other colours used?

• Occam’s Razor: Attributed to an early British philosopher and used widely in many disciplines, it is a rule of thumb that says the simplest of two solutions to a problem is usually the best. Can I eliminate a design element and still maintain an interesting work? Maybe I can reduce the number of colours used, the number of occurrences of a particular shape, the variety of different textural effects. Mixed-media artists in particular, with such a wide vocabulary of technique available, are prone to breaking this rule to the detriment of what they have to say.

Personal Marks and Surfaces

Our personal marks are an important aspect of our overall personal style and a key aspect to the expression of our content. A number of things can be said about such marks:

• They are most successful when they are applied or developed as a work progresses. That is, they reveal a history, even if the nature of the history is not clear. To achieve this, they should begin their existence in early layers. Marks added late sit on top and may exhibit a lack of integration as if they were an afterthought.

• We usually want our surfaces to show a rich history. This means many layers of adding and subtracting elements.

• Spontaneity or intuitive application of elements is overworked as a procedural means of painting. It is usually not enough to create good work. Marks and surface usually require reflective consideration and critical assessment in their development and composition.

• One way of approaching the problem is to paint an area expressively and then paint over or paint out the areas that are unwanted.

• We learn the most when we fix problems associated with developing surfaces, marks and structures or compositions.

• When we develop successful personal marks, they become a recognizable expression of our personality and are what gets attention in the art world.

Change of Scale

We have included this section since we often encourage participants to work larger. It is only fair to warn you then of some of the issues that might arise.

What at first may seem to be a trivial exercise turns out to be complex process. The reason we will attribute in large part to what we will call information density. In Part 3, The Process of Abstraction, we spoke of the information or detail associated with an image and particularly various parts or elements of the image. We noted that busy areas contain a lot of information, often in the form of marks, and quiet areas contain little.

This allows us to think in terms of the relative amount of information in an area or its information density. Normally we think in scaling up we just multiply the size of all elements. For example, if we want to double the size of an image in both directions, it is not too difficult to double the size of a shape, especially if it is a regular geometric shape like a square.

Suppose the original element had three textural marks inside it and we faithfully double the size of the marks, the problem is, the information density is one quarter what it was in the original image. If we double the viewing distance, the expanded image will look pretty much like the original looked from the normal viewing distance, whatever that was. But the expanded image viewed from the original normal distance now looks strangely different, because the information density, the amount of detail per square inch has been reduced by a factor of four.

No problem you say. You'll just apply the original texture of the original shape to the new shape of four times the area. The problem is, this textural pattern which gave us our original information density, relative to the larger shape may not work! So  what do you do then? The new shape with the same amount of information at one quarter density (textural marks twice as large in both dimensions) doesn't work because the textural marks have grown to read as individual shapes instead of texture. And the new shape filled with a texture of the original size or density, now looks weird.

This somewhat convoluted argument was created to give a conceptual basis for certain problems that arise through scaling. A number of other issues may arise:

• Tool size: with four times the area to cover you may have to move to larger tools such as larger brushes, or different tools such as from brushes to knives, scrapers or rollers. It takes time to adjust ones working practice and skills to accommodate the new tools and associated new ways of working.

• Gestural marks that at the original scale where automatic, no longer work at the new scale. One may have to adjust some very basic working characteristics. A larger tool may allow larger gestural marks. But possibly the bodily dynamics of making such larger marks may not come to suit.

• Overall compositional themes that worked at smaller scales may not work at the new scale. New themes may have to be developed.

• When scaling up, will the new new size fit in your car like the old size did or do you suddenly have a transportation problem? Is your studio space still large enough both in terms of working and storage space?

• That cozy and intimate little gallery that so suited your earlier work may not allow the viewer enough distance to get a proper perspective, so you now have to find new gallery representation.

• Clients that were buying your work for their small lofts no longer have wall space or room for your new work. On the other hand there are those people with new million dollar mansions with bare walls that somehow must become your new clients.

• Other changes may occur over time such as a different circle of artist friends, changed personal tastes in art, a desire for different sources of training and reading material, etc.

Scaling down presents many of the same problems. The point is whenever we make a significant change in how we work, there can be a host of ramifications that arise, some anticipated any many not. For every issue we've raised in this section, many novel ones may await that we are not aware of. The end result is almost always worth the transitional pain.

Parting Thoughts

Mary and I had a recent long discussion on an ongoing topic for us. The crux of the issue is how much personal expression does one want in their work and what is the cost to achieve it.

On one end you have the very small number of artists that are considered to be giants in the field. A qualifying characteristic is that they found a means of expressing what was inside them that was revolutionary and moved the entire state of visual art forward.

On the other end are the large numbers of people who simply want to create a personally satisfying object that can be achieved by a few lessons or courses from others. Their work, while satisfying to themselves and friends, contains little hint of personal expression or discovery. Some craftspeople and occasional painters might constitute this group.

The key point is both perspectives are equally valid although people in one group are often dismissive of people in the other group.

Somewhere in between are painters, especially successful commercial ones, who develop an individually expressive style to a point of personal satisfaction and stop evolving, being content to churn out endless versions of acceptable work with mass appeal. Again, this is a perfectly valid position.

We will have been successful in our mentoring if we bring you closer to your goals, whatever category they fit in if they fit in any category at all. We hope we have given you some tools and insight that you can continue on the journey by yourself. For some people it's the destination that's important and for others, it's the journey itself.