Our demo at the end of November was by Peter Keegan, on the Power of Design and Composition.
He gave so much wonderful information, about the business of the art world as well as composition. I’m not going to say much about it, as you can watch the whole presentation again. Gill sent round the link and Passcode by email, so I won’t put a link in as the Zoom presentations are for members only, and so I had better not release it to the world. But we received an unusually large amount of positive feedback afterwards, so don’t miss it.
Peter started by mentioning the several ‘rules’ of composition, adding that they are a matter of opinion, and you are completely free to ignore them. In my humble opinion, artists, like authors, ignore rules at their cost, as the viewers have certain expectations of the accepted standards, whether consciously or not!
Apart from composition design, the second most important is tonal value, i.e. the light and shade in the painting. Third is colour, choices and the way colours work together, and finally the painting process itself, the way you lay the paint on your chosen base. Then he said another one: your artistic intention. What are you trying to say? This should underpin everything – the four principles should deliver your intention.
If that has piqued your interest, and you missed it–or even if you didn’t miss it and want to take another look–then hunt out the email link from your inbox, sent on 23 November by Gill.