The Most Important Thing Artists Forget

Composition is something a lot of artists don't consider when making art. Many artists are so focused on representing what they want they often neglect composition. Composition is the format of your art. This doesn't just mean your main subject but also the background and even the placement of colors and shades on your artwork. Composition describes the relationship all these factors have to one another and your artwork as a whole. Even a portrait with a black background has composition. The relationship with the black background to the person's head as well as shadows cast by the person all influence composition.

For the beginner artist composition can feel stifling. If you are painting something because you have an interest in the subject like an animal or object it's difficult to have patience for more 'boring' aspects of art like the background of your piece. Nevertheless a good composition should enhance the subject you are drawing. Compositions have the ability to convey action, feeling, and even guide viewers' eyes into your art.

On the other hand a bad composition is something even non-artists will notice. The most obvious symptom of a bad composition is confusion over your art. If many people who look at your art need clarification to understand what's in your art you definitely have work to do.

The most common composition mistakes I see artists make usually have to do with contrast and cohesiveness. For example, many beginner artists are afraid to use dark shadows. As a result, it can be difficult to tell what is going on in their art because there's no difference in value. Everything seems foggy and undefined. Beginner artists also don't typically understand cohesiveness in relation to contrast. While it is good to have some dark shades and lines among lighter ones it is important to unify parts of the artwork too. An example of this is making mountains in your background a similar color. This promotes unity and can allow your subject infront of the mountains to shine.

Aside from physical objects in your artwork like trees, color can also greatly influence composition. Using slightly different colors in different areas of your painting can help you to contrast and highlight areas of your painting you want people to look at. Similarly grouping items together near one another by painting them a similar color will make them blend together harmoniously.

Another aspect of composition is value. Value describes how light or dark an artwork is (this does not include colors). Similar to colors you can use values to sharpen and soften areas of your painting.

If you have a weak composition employing these two art elements can really help you out! If you begin using these elements more proficiently but you still feel like your art looks off this might be a problem with placement and the spacial relationships between objects in your painting.

I will cover this in a future secondary post on negative space.