Design and composition create harmony

by Tissa Hewavitarane

What is design and composition? How the parts of the painting arranged on the drawing paper is called design or composition. It adds up to a harmonious whole. A badly composed picture will look disjointed and irritating, but a well composed picture fits together in a satisfying way even though we may not be able to explain exactly why.

What the artist has to work with are called elements of art or design. The elements of design include line, colour, shape, value, texture, space and form. The principles of design include balance, rhythm, emphasis, unity, variety, proportion and movement. These principles are concerned with how the art elements relate to each other - line to line and shape to line.

A watercolour painting.

These parts must work together and be satisfying - then only the composition will be good. Another important factor is division of space. This is the way a picture is organised. Lastly, always provide a centre of interest - the most important thing and what a picture is really all about. It is very important that this centre of interest should be placed correctly in the picture where everything can lead the eye to it.

Rembrandt

The complete master of this was Rembrandt. You are absolutely compelled to go where he wants to go. Your own paintings should try to do the same thing, which is to guide the viewer gradually to the centre of interest. You can emphasise this centre of interest in many ways with dramatic counter changes.

Counter change is the placing of dark shapes against light ones, and light shapes against dark. Basically, this is contrasting areas of dark and light as on a chess board. This principle should be locked in your mind all the time when you're painting. All the great masters used this principle when they composed their work.

A single boat on a beach can be very dramatic, however small it is, particularly if the centre of the coastline points the eye directly to it. If it doesn't, you can change the coastline or move the boat. Make sure you have a centre of interest in your picture. It is the point around which the whole painting revolves. The main object of interest should never be in the exact centre of your painting, move it to the left or right.

Harmony

Concern with the relationship of the parts of a painting produces harmony, a feeling that it all goes together. Provide a way into the painting and movement around it. Divide the space in an interesting way.

Provide the centre of interest (and several less important ones). Provide a variety of shapes, sizes, colours, lines and introducing figures.

The entrance to a painting is usually at the bottom. The eye goes over the foreground objects and into the main part of the painting, travel around from object to object, rest at the centre of interest, and exists in the distance, out the side.

The interest in a painting can be shifted forward or backward by the placement of light and dark areas. Notice the painting done here. The centre of interest in this picture is the tall building of a church, and the huge tree by the side.

The main outlines of the landscape are painted with varying degree of precision. The area corresponding to the road is minimally but clearly shown. Care is needed to draw the curve that differentiates the road from land. The tree is precisely painted and its most relevant branches are clearly shown.

To make the picture move dramatic I have introduced a few figures on both sides of the road and a bullock cart at a distance.

Observe the sky with smudged blue graduating towards white to suggest clouds. The sky is painted on a dry surface but the blending of the tones is created with the graduation of blue. Variety causes the composition to be alive, to keep it from being monotonous.

All the art elements are brought to bear in this case - colour, shape, line, contrast, softness and wetness with sharp brush strokes introducing plenty of depth. Pattern is a direct and a simple way to work with the elements of design.

Colour values

The selection of colour in a painting is dictated by the method the artist works. Colour can be realistic, adhering to nature as closely as possible, or it can be subjective, with the artist using colour he feels is right at that time. Between these two extremes exists a wide range of possibilities, depending on the purpose of the artist. (Many books have been written on colour and its application to painting. Some books on art contain entire chapters on colour guides, mixing, combination and application to specific situations. Several aspects of colour have special interest to the watercolourists.

Watercolour dries lighter and should, therefore, be applied a bit more boldly than other paints. A colour can be grayed if it is too intense by putting a complementary colour over it, or by mixing the two in the palette. Don't use black to tone down intensity. Many artists never use black in their palette, preferring to make darker colours by mixing.

Black in student colours often has an opaque look and tends to seem foreign to the rest of the colours. A full range of colours, combined with contrasting values produces a strong painting. This work is part of a much larger still life, and colours are the personal selection of the artist and not the actual local hues. Most inexpensive colours are rather uninteresting and need to be mixed to get satisfying results.