Avoid aligning objects on a horizontal or vertical axis. Afternoon Delight 12×9 – First version of the painting. It is hard for the viewer's eye to move to other areas in the painting. For most artists, they consider that a terrible thing to do. It’s a good idea to remember what Richard Schmid says, “what we are seeing when we are attracted to striking designs is simply artists’ ingenious solutions to their particular problems of arrangement.”, Dalmally Churchyard 24×18 by Richard Schmid (Source). The easiest way to think of this is when it feels like someone is looking in a specific direction.
They are too static and non-artistic. Place any main objects to the left or right of the vertical center line and above or below the horizontal line. After you position the main subjects of your painting, you are well on your way to an exciting painting. Be willing to veer away from what you actually see and change shapes, modify values and anything else you deem necessary in the interest of creating order and organization out of visual chaos.
Unless of course we deliberately ignore that principle for a specific effect. Finally, a list of attributes would print out and, low and behold, they would fit us to a T. That is, if we ignored the ones that didn’t fit our personality and focused only on those that did. The focus of these paintings is to stimulate effect, rather than craft a message, story, or place. Avoid objects kissing each other or kissing the side of the canvas. }); Artist Network is with you every step of your art journey. Artists call that kissing. Each has their own character and effect on the viewer. Morrow’s Meadow 12×16 – oil painting by Bill Inman. Have large, small and medium items in the painting, never all the same size.
painting. Pattern in art generates the flow or paths in our paintings. The painting above is also an example of Closure because our minds complete the curving lines of the lily pads even when one pad overlaps another. The Fibonacci numbers and spirals are found in plenty of God’s creations like pineapple fruit, pine cones, and flowers. Don't have them just barely touching, that's a tangent. While we don’t necessarily want to focus on color as a universal psychological tool, the dynamics of color in nature offer a universal language. It is created using both physical and abstract elements.
So: 1+1=2; 1+2=3; 2+3=5; 3+5=8; 8+5=13; 8+13=21. The viewer’s eye will tend to follow the line of sight. Your explanation was an easy read and your examples backing up your explanation made it so easy to understand. That brings us to Dynamic Symmetry which seems to be growing like a seemingly benign wart right on the tip of art’s nose. The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh Dutch 1853 – 1890. Then they won't feel disconcerting. The eye will automatically be attracted to the area of the painting where the lightest and darkest values are in closest proximity to each other. Strap Happy by Patti Mollica, acrylic on panel, 12 x 12; collection of Ute Spatz. If you feel something is off, or your trusted second set of eyes feels it’s unbalanced, then fix it.
Nature doesn’t want to be confined to a rigid framework any more than our compositions do. No matter where we live on the earth certain aspects of the atmosphere is similar.