Last week’s tutorial was tips for making a composition better, so this week let’s talk about what to avoid.
I’ve taken a few photos to illustrate my points here, but this applies to paintings as well as photography. Trust me, I’ve learned this the hard way, and I’d gladly use my own paintings as examples of what NOT to do, but I’ve thrown all of those paintings away!
Rule one is by far the easiest rule to remember and correct. It’s simply this: NO KISSING on the painting. By kissing, I mean no edges touching– you want space between those edges or you want overlap. Edges that kiss one another flatten a painting, and irritate the eye. See?
By the way, these matryoshka dolls are actually measuring cups. I love them. But not so much that I want them kissing.
The second thing to consider is Negative Space, which means the space around what you’re painting. We talked about this a bit last time with the Rule of Thirds, but it’s worth mentioning again. Consider making the negative space interesting, and you’re half-way to a good composition. In the picture above, the negative space is even, the subject is smack in the center, and it’s frightfully boring.
And here the image feels crowded, because there is almost no negative space. Also, the kissing. NO KISSING. Another thing to consider– notice how the face of the doll on the right is looking out of the frame? Not good. The viewer can’t see what she’s looking at, and that draws attention away from the image. If your subject is a face, consider adding a little extra negative space where your subject’s eyes are looking. It helps to keep the viewer in the painting.
Adding overlap and a little space makes a big difference. Another basic trick (not necessarily a rule) is to aim for an odd number of objects in your composition. Somehow, an odd number is more visually appealing. There are many excellent exceptions to this “rule”, but if you’re stuck, it’s a good place to begin.
This image isn’t too crowded, the negative space is interesting, and there’s overlap (instead of kissing) to create depth. The odd number helps, and they’re balanced with the two smaller dolls offsetting the larger one nicely. You can also apply the rule of thirds and discover that the largest doll is entirely in the left third of the image, and the eye of the doll in front lines up with an intersecting point on the tic-tac-toe grid. I know that because my camera has a feature that overlaps the grid on the viewfinder– which makes all of this very easy.
We’re five tutorials in– are you learning anything? Is there something I’m forgetting? What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know.
