Learn Drawing - Using These Principles Of Composition

By Author: Ruediger Schmidt
Total Articles: 35
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A superior composition makes the difference between an ordinary artwork and your appealing, attention-grabbing illustration. So once you find out online how to draw, it is vital to learn some fundamental ability about composition and its guidelines.

Principle 1: Balanced Pictures

A good way to guarantee that your composition is balanced is to think of your drawing as a scale. If there is something on the right, you need something to balance it on the left. If there is too much action on the top half of the picture, you need something to equilibrate the bottom half of the picture.

If you don't balance your composition the viewer's eye will be drawn out of the picture, instead of into the picture. As an artist you want to focus the viewer looking at your work for long time.

You can use objects, or tone, or color to balance a drawing. If you include dark areas, they need to be equalized with lighter areas; large objects in a drawing can be balanced by smaller finer objects or by similarly big objects.

Another way to bring balance in your work is to make certain that you do not have the major ...
... objects in your drawing too near to the edge. In contrast, bringing the main focus in the centre can result in an uninteresting composition.

Stability can be symmetrical (top and bottom or left and right, both are same - like a mirror image) or asymmetrical. Symmetrical balance is easier to achieve, but asymmetrical balance is more attractive.

Guideline 2: Discover Pleasing Compositions

There are a number of techniques to create eye-catching compositions but you will, in all likelihood, find that as you become experienced, creating a enjoyable composition will become a habit. You'll have learned then to adjust any picture's composition easily.

While beginning to learn to draw, it's much easier to resort to finding and re-creating pleasing compositions rather than creating them from scratch. One of the most essential tools in creating a lovely composition is a view finder.

Cut 2 pieces of cardboard having L-shape and grasp them together to develop a rectangular frame. Then hold that frame between yourself and the scene you will be drawing and shift it around till you get an appealing and lovely composition.

This is the drawing equivalent of 'zooming-in' when taking a photograph and it will help to make certain that you do not include too many particulars in your drawing. You can also employ the viewfinder to confirm that the format you use (landscape or portrait) will be thematically appropriate for your drawing.

Principle 3: Create Pleasing Compositions

If you have experience then it is sensible to try to create scenes to have a pleasing composition.

So you can arrange scenes to have some depth, for example, scenes having a foreground, middle ground and background. Overlap some of the objects to stress on this depth. An odd quantity of things is often more welcome than an even number, like asymmetry is generally more appealing than symmetry.

You could try applying the 'Rule of Thirds' to make sure that your composition is not too static or boring. Using a variety of shapes and textures and taking note of the negative space (the space around your object/s) will also prevent your drawing from being boring and static. Additionally, be cautious of objects that tend to just touch as this can be upsetting. Objects should overlap or there should be a space between them to get rid of this kind of problem.
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