Thoughts on composition.

Composition is a broad term and encompasses many ‘rules’ or guidelines. Simply put it is the way in which we arrange visual elements to communicate our ideas about the subject we are painting.

Paintings that are considered well composed are clear, concise, and interesting, with all parts working in harmony. Cohesive rather than an arrangement of parts. A painting that lacks a strong composition on the other hand can feel wrong but hard to pinpoint exactly why.

So, what does it come down to? For me I am considering two main ideas when painting – what am I trying to say and how am I going to say it? A big part of that is my resource material – I tend to use my own sketches as a reference, they are something I’m already familiar with and have edited information by the time I get to painting.

The other part is an understanding of the basic elements of composition, I don’t always get it right but it’s the main thing that I am considering throughout a painting. Once you know and understand the ‘rules’ they are there to be challenged and even broken.

I see a lot of early stage painters who end up very frustrated when trying to copy a reference photograph or, worse still, another artist’s painting. Even should they achieve their goal of complete accuracy, they are often left feeling underwhelmed. Hence the reason I encourage a reference photo to be turned over at some stage and allow intuition and creativity to take over.

Ultimately paintings must be able to stand on their own so we can bring it back to the two questions - what do you want to say and how are you going to say it?