The Fine Art of Composition

Oh dear. You know a session isn't going to go very well when your tutor starts by accidentally screwing up one of your test pieces and throwing it in the bin. Followed, pretty quickly, by suggesting you might want to jigsaw your painting into parts!

But no worries.

Chris was fantastic today and spent probably almost an hour with me, going through things I might have done, scale, composition etc. And I learnt so much.

I quite pride myself on my creative imagination. But that man's a genius! We talked about scanning girls faces onto dollar bills. Doing a series of five paintings (as opposed to trying to mesh all elements together in one). Making casts out of face cream pots (although I said I wasn't prepared to attempt making a coffee pot, so maybe that idea wouldn't work).

As well as scale, composition is also really important and my lack of success in both was why the painting wasn't working; why it just didn't feel finished.

After I'd politely refused to a/ cut it up b/ repaint it c/ start again, he nicely looked at how I might improve upon what I had. (Given that two of the elements were stuck onto the board).

We talked about the simplest of devices, the rule of thirds. And I immediately saw how that helped. And how wrong I'd been to put everything in the middle.

Life both before and after my consultation with Chris

It's still not ideal, I see that now. But it's a lot better than it was.

We photocopied and enlarged the coffee pot in order to give it more dramatic scale. At first I didn't like the fact it wasn't hand painted, but then realised that the fact it was photocopied was a good expression of the fact that, originally, it was a mass produced item. 

I did a more representational copy of the stamp - helping to enhance the ridiculous value of this tiny piece of paper. And I removed the string from the labels to again make things neater.

I like the 'hierachy' of scales on the left hand side now. Including the fact that the girls end up at the bottom. (Chris hated the bed!)  It would be better if the cream pot and the bed were further to the left. But, overall, it is much more structured, coherent and hopefully easier to read. (Although I suspect that the original on the left is still a better expression of inside my mind!)

Chris also made an interesting point about the fact that art isn't about shoving a message in people's faces. It's much more subtle than that. Although I'm not sure subtlety is particularly my forte. And I might well be one of those people's who walks away from a piece, not having got the message. So we'll see.

So, what have I learnt from this project? Well, composition and the value of thirds is suddenly a lot clearer. (In fact, it was no less than a bit of an epiphany yesterday).  I've learnt that I need to 'make with my hands' along the way, rather than just thinking about things (really hard) for five weeks and then doing something quite fast in the final week. (Maybe I'm more of a conceptual artist, with all of my amazing concepts being on show in my brain alone!)

I've learnt the immense value of discussing things with the tutors. In fact, every time I do I am so impressed with their ideas. Although I have also quickly learnt that 'no, I'm not doing that, i've worked hard enough already' is sometimes a necessary response.

And I've learnt to try and not be so literal. (Yep. Still smarting a little from that one). 

Did the first 'draft' of all four photos (which again, my photography tutor hates), need to paint a cow on Annie's face this evening, and then we're in the home straight.

I sure am looking forward to the weekend.