Trying out composition on my sketch walk

The instructions for exercise 1 do not actually tell me what I am expected to do! They imply, though that I should go back to the place I did the Project 2 drawings, and rework them adventurously.

Anyway, for this exercise I returned the park where I had done my original drawings of clouds and landscape scenes. My idea was to go back to the one with the path crossroads, but when I got there I could see that I could pick a vista which was more amenable to the composition ideas explored in my last entry. Reasons for this were that the detail in the foreground would have to be of the path (not very exciting), and the distant vagueness and blueness would end up being in the tunnel between trees (a bit of a cliche). So I looked for a view with trees in the foreground (which have interesting textured bark), something in the middleground, and an interesting distant object or two. 

I did my sketches with B charcoal pencil for the foreground, HB for middle-ground, and H for the most distant objects.

Landscape format

This was my first attempt - the trees were interesting in themselves and I could imagine having fun with their texture and the details round their bases. In the middle ground were some other trees, and a bar of houses with some white painted windows and other detail (which I have sketched in here as boxes within the bar). In the distance is a fairyland group of skyscrapers in the City of London. I didn't manage with this pencil to show the shapes or the grey-blue colour of this distant object. It was definitely separate from the rest in real life, with finer lines and bluer colour. Re the composition, I thought that the focal point of this arrangement is actually a relatively empty space in the middle point of the rectangle! Not what I was aiming for at all. Even if I could get the city buildings to obviously be in the distance, they would be in the wrong place in this composition to be the focal point. 

Portrait format

My next try was portrait, just to see what happened to the image.
This of course led to there being only part of the trees visible in the foreground,
and the detail being in the form of twigs and leaves rather than bark texture.
The middle ground detail is more rudimentary, and I felt the need to give it
a bit more depth with the charcoal. The distant towers look almost alien
floating on the horizon, as the blueness is too much.
Again the focus of the picture is the clump of trees below the city
rather than the city itself. This may be because the whole picture space
is divided in the wrong place, leaving the city dead centre rather than just off centre.
And because the portrait format flattens the depth.

This is the same sketched, cropped to put the city on the golden section line vertically.
This has the side effect of making the rectangle less narrow in relation to its height.
It seems to have the effect of making it more the focus, at the same time as making the
twig detail at the top more accessible to the eye movements, and the city looks more at
eye level than it did before. While it's better, I'm not sure its what I was after in fact,
because I want to feel I'm looking up at the magical city.

This is the same sketch, cropped the other way, so as to put the city at the
golden section the other way round. I think it works much better than the
previous ones, with a feeling of it being infinitely far away and unattainable,
like a fairy tale castle (which is what it felt like in real life). The
foreground looks more foreshortened too, emphasising the depth and distance.
Unfortunately the blue still isn't working as it's not grey enough.

Square Format

Using a square format, I felt the need to frame it in the foreground. I thought it would be interesting to use the drooping branches in the composition to 'point' towards the city, which would mean that it didn't have to emphasise itself in the same way to become the focal point. I dropped the blue altogether for this one, and the middle ground needs work too, but the idea, with the city as the target of the branch vectors has potential. There is lots there for the eyes to move around with, and the contrast can easily be adjusted in places to draw the eye around.

Last composition sketch on this walk. I put the middle ground and foreground tree at 5/8 positions, and the city just above the horizon. As I noticed in the duck sketch above, the close-up tree on a landscape format actually makes the eye look past it to experience the full space and depth of the image, ie the focus becomes the city rather than the tree. I added some directionality in the trees on the left and contrast in the middleground (especially on the right), to keep the eyes moving round the image. The tree, and the ground to the right of it, need more detail.

Composition Research

I started learning about composition for this topic by reading the section in 'Contemporary Drawing: Key concepts and techniques' by Margaret Davidson (2011, Watson-Gupthill Publications NY), and in my sketchbook thinking about how each idea related to my reworking of my assignment 2 piece.

Universal Fundamentals of Composition
FORMAT

LANDSCAPE

Using a flat rectangle automatically suggests to the viewer a deep and wide image with depth to it.

Hence the feeling that if there is a lot of water around the duckings, that the intention is to emphasise the size of that.

I hadn't actually thought of it in this way before - that there is a message in the shape itself. Duh!

LANDSCAPE
Even if you try to bring the viewer focus to the object itself by making the object enormous, all it does is make you look past it to the depth and breadth of the image again, just because of the landscape format!

PORTRAIT FORMAT
Using a rectangle in this orientation automatically conveys a feeling of
an enclosed, more intimate space, with less depth to it, with the focus
more on the object itself.

PORTRAIT FORMAT
This relative flatness and focus on the object rather than the
space holds true even when the object is relatively small, if the
format is vertical.

Other formats, according to this book, are imbued with this kind of meaning to the extent that they refer to the oblong shapes above. I thought I would visually think about this in reference to clothing eg a hoody being nearly but not quite portrait format would suggest relative flatness. Unless you make it into a landscape rectangle deliberately.

MODIFIED PORTRAIT SHAPE
Oh so flat- looking - decorative rather than representational

MODIFIED PORTRAIT hoody
Even referring to the actual three dimensions of the body doesn't make it
stop looking flat.

LANDSCAPE HOODY
But magically, putting in a horizontal format creates the illusion of space where
you know there isn't any.

UNIVERSAL FUNDAMENTALS OF COMPOSITION

EYE LEVEL

LOOKING DOWN ON THE IMAGE - Landscape
The landscape format still makes you see space.
Looking down on it makes the viewer feel powerful, and the object look small, contained, restricted, powerless
These ducks are obviously on a pond, rather than free, simply because I am looking at them from above.

LOOKING STRAIGHT ON - landscape
This makes the image more personal and familiar
Perhaps this duck even has a name. I found myself sketching in a domestic scene, with depth suggested by the landscape format, the intimacy prompted by the eye level.

LOOKING UP AT THE OBJECT - landscape
This makes the image more imposing/ huge/ possibly dangerous
Am I going to get kicked/ eaten?!

After these revelations, I tried looking at portrait format from above, level and below to see whether the effect was altered with the format.

FROM ABOVE - Portrait
The words that come to mind are squashed,
inferior, rejected, dejected, cramped
disrespected, dismissed, forgotten

EYE LEVEL - portrait
This gives a very straightforward what you see is the plain truth
rather flat image with little in the way of subtlety or nuance.
Like a childrens' book or a scientific illustration - factual.

FROM BELOW - portrait
On a pedestal, looking down it's nose at me,
puffed up, grand, out of my reach,
The Duck God

EYE PATHWAYS
Thinking about balance in a drawing, and the path the eye takes across and within the picture, it helps to think about the things we are naturally drawn to:
1. Faces
2. Vectors (arrows, pointing things, or directional marks)
3. High contrast points
4. Power centers (either side of the middle of a horizontal rectangle, or just above the middle of a vertical one)
5. Focal points created by the artist for the viewer to return to repeatedly (or deliberately have no focal point)
This list was condensed directly from Margaret Davidson's book.

I did some sketches thinking about how to make a composition for my duck drawing that would draw the eye round the picture to come back to the eye of the mother duck.

USING COMPOSITION TO DIRECT EYE PATHWAYS
First, the format is landscape as I want to give a feeling of space.
The images are larger than in my original assignment drawing so that the space is the one between the duck and her duckling. I think the power centre of the image is the part of the skeleton duck wing which has the markings on it (because of the parallel lines perhaps?) But the viewer most likely enters the picture through the eye/head of the mother duck, just to the right of the centre (1). This would lead either to the vector of the beak, or down to the power point. Following the vector (2) the eye reaches the high contrast duckling (3), and from there through the other beak/ vector back to the power centre. There may be some movement along the ducks back, which would give some balance to the image, but I think there may be room for some use of background contrast or vectors to balance it vertically a bit more.

SYMMETRICAL BALANCE
Attractive but static
Re: meaning, there is a formality to this that brings its own meaning
that trumps anything else you might want to say, unless you use it deliberately.
Eg to contrast something wild (or out of the pattern) against the formal arrangement.
I could I suppose have one skeleton in a formal balanced arrangement of rubber ducks.

ASYMMETRICAL BALANCE
This is the elaboration of the image of the mother and baby ducks above,
but using detail and contrast in the background to keep the viewer looking.
More complex, subtle and engaging - I think this is something that
would make me continue to look at an image after I'd had it for a while.
Not so much about meaning, but about viewer satisfaction!

THE GOLDEN SECTION

The Golden Section or Golden ratio - proportion of 5 to 8 which is thought to be
a frequent ratio in nature and therefore intrinsically satisfying for human brains to look at.
Has been used by classical and contemporary artists, architects etc to guide composition.
There is also a rule of thirds which is that it looks interesting
to have images on the lines between thirds of the paper.
I didn't explore these ideas today.

OVERALLNESS
Deliberately creating an image with no focal point or eye pathway, giving a different kind of unity and balance. This can either be by having a uniform texture over a symmetrical format (eg a square), or a different format with marks with equal emphasis so the eye moves across the surface evenly with the same level of interest in everything there.

Skin close up
An example of overall composition (well, almost, as the difference in focus in some areas does produce a slight focal point)
Thinking about what ideas this brings into the mind of the viewer, I'd say it makes us more aware of the detail, and lose some of our perspective on skin as a familiar useful thing that doesn't need our attention.

Could I make the great patterns and colour variations of the bones of the duck skeleton 'become' the overall composition
 in a way that would not produce vectors and focal points? I don't know, but I could try!

Project 3: Detailed observation of natural objects

Exercise 1: Using markers or dip pens

First I tried pen and ink drawing of objects on moss-and-soil covered stone. I found that it was difficult to get very bright colours of ink from the selection I had, and mixing colours made them even duller.

The composition, of three objects about the same size on a flat background was rather boring too.

This was when I decided to try using marker pens instead
of ink. It was much more sharp and bright, as suggested
in the course work instructions.

This was one I did to try to get more detail
and three dimensional interest

Then I started some more focussed thinking about composition. In particular, what do you do about background if you are drawing natural objects. My initial thought of a mossy stone didn't do so well, partly because of the lack of contrast between it and the objects, and partly because it was rather flat, so didn't hold them up 

in an interesting juxtaposition.

So I decided to put my objects into a plain bowl.This gave it a thrown together look, which allowed shadows and relationships between the objects.

Sketches in marker pen of different compositions and backgrounds for the natural objects.
It was obvious to me, looking at the compositions, that the emphasis would be on different things with different arrangements, and I have made notes of that. However, it was also obvious that using marker pens for these sketches did not show what I was interested in, so the rest of the sketches were done in pencil.

This was a closer focus on the objects
inside the bowl, with the stalk snaking over the top third.
The wavy line and shells are a classic combination,
and they give an interesting contrast to the plain eggshells

By this time I had decided that a bowl was the way to support them, and that broken eggs were going to be the main part of the group of objects.

Vertical composition

I like their texture and the contrast between the smooth shell and the jagged broken edges, and between the orange-brown outside as opposed to the pale mauve inside.

This was the objects in a bowl, with stalks
falling across. I liked this, but the stalk
at the bottom didn't work so well.

Trying out different shapes of paper, I wanted to see the effect of having more weight and detail at the bottom and less at the top of a taller page.

This was good, but had the effect of losing the attention on the eggs.

I then tried a flatter rectangle, which lost some of the interest altogether.

Horizontal composition

Mixing marker pens

I decided to go with the original layout, with closer focus but showing all or most of the supporting bowl, in a square format. The two stalks were to be arranged so that they were both in the middle section, allowing the shadows to add interest to the right hand side.

My last sketchbook work for this exercise was to try out combinations of marker pen to see the range of colours available to me.

Drawing for Exercise 1: Still life with broken eggs
Marker pens

Exercise 2: Detail and simple line

Mushroom drawn with black felt pen without lifting pen from paper

Exercise 3: Detail & Tone

Still life of natural objects

Which drawing media did you find most useful for which effects?
For making objects seem solid - pencil and colour.
I was surprised at how the marker picture turned out - I thought it would look a lot more flat - strong colour blocks intensify the shaping effect of light and shade.
Crosshatching worked well to give shape and detail. Not so good for contrast - might use watercolour pencils to give more contrast of tone.

What sort of marks work well to create tone, pattern and texture?
Combinations in layers give more depth to texture.
Pattern looks good in plain ink lines.
I didn't use frottage for any of these, but it would have been useful for the shell or avocado skin.
Thinking about negative space has helped to shape all these objects, and their markings.

Look at the composition of the drawings you've done in this projects. Makes some notes about how you might create more interesting compositions.
I have an urge to frame things. I don't think this is necessarily a good thing, and I tried in the last drawing to just lay them out and not frame them. The effect of this was to make them look a bit flat and without purpose. I don't feel particularly confident that I know how to do this, to make the background work. I think I just have to try a variety of solutions, and perhaps copy some classic ones, so that I can work out what effect they have on the final drawing.