Composition and Value

Composition and Value

Day 9 in the 30 in 30 Day Challenge

As I stated when I started the 30 in 30 Challenge, although I paint a lot, I don't paint every single day, and I don't paint that many small paintings.  But, I like a challenge and I like to make things work.  So, this week I'm working on a 20 x 20 of a farm from our visit in September to Vermont.  Everyday I'll post about 1 to 2 hours worth of work until I'm done.

One of the fundamentals of drawing and painting that can be challenging is composition.  We know that a painting needs a good composition to work.  But, what makes a good composition?  When you look at the work of a master in a museum, why does it stand out?  What piece in a gallery really draws you?  Sometimes it's the strong light, sometimes it's the bold or subtle value and color, sometimes it's the great composition.  There's a lot more to a painting than just painting.

Very basically composition is the placement of the dominant mass(es) and line(s).  I like the movement in the upper right sketch because the lines of the cornfield move up to the mass of the shape of the farm.

As many of us do, I have a lot of art books.  Two of my favorites are Composition of Outdoor Painting by Edgar Payne and Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting by John F. Carlson.  I was much newer to painting when I first got these and found them hard to get through.  I've read and reread them (sometimes only a chapter or two at a time) over the years and appreciate all that they teach.  I love Paynes' drawings for his suggestions for design.  They are so helpful when landscape painting.  Carlson also has diagrams showing dominant mass and line schemes.

I don't do sketches like this with every painting, although I probably should do more.  I knew that I wanted to paint some of the barns and farms in Vermont.  I took so many photos that had good starts for a painting but needed work.  So I spent quite awhile just editing photos, before I even got to sketching.  After I picked four that I liked and thought would work I tried to get the composition working on the photo, then adjusted it as I sketched.  I don't always grid my sketches, but find that that is helpful with architecture.  By the time I got to the end of these 4 sketches I'd probably been working for about 2 hours.  I'm not used to photoing white, so the values don't show up very well.