what makes a composition

Let my start off this post by saying that I am not proclaiming myself as a teacher, but I thought I would make a post like this (and possibly more similar ones in the future) because I want this blog to be a resource to as many individuals as possible, which would include other artists who (if you're like me) are always trying to soak up new information. I wanted to share my thought processes when it came to formulating compositions for several of my pieces and I guess explain why I made the decisions I made. The title of this post is pretty self-explanatory: these are just my reasonings on how I set the structure of my drawings.

Let's take a look at the last piece I finished:

The blue arrows show an angled flow that I wanted to add in the drawing to make it seem more dynamic, since the character is just crouching down. Since his stance removes his feet from the picture plane, it would be really easy to come across as static. To combat that, I tried arching his pose (or my pose) into one that could help imply movement without having some cliche action stance or showing the legs.
The pink arrows show the intended path that I wanted to lead the viewer's eye. I also highlighted certain points of interest that are key points to keeping the composition connected with itself. These are obvious areas, like the face, and hands. By propping up the left elbow, it helps to lead the left hand to the face without creating an awkward gap of negative space. Once at the face, the viewers eye always tends to follow the character's line of sight, which in this case, hits the twig in his hand, stead of leading the viewer off the picture plane. That twig then connects to his right hand gripping it, then to the nearby knee, which then heads back to the left hand on the branch with the help of the vines at the bottom to create an interesting pathway.


Heres another piece, this time showing multiple characters in a single frame:

With this piece, I basically tried to think of the viewer's eye as a sort of bouncing gaze that I had to ricochet back and forth between points of interest in order to keep the composition from failing. I used the 3 characters to almost act like checkpoints or borders. An easy tactic, if you have things like ropes or branches in your image, is to use them as directional lines that helps unite the image and connect certain key elements. In addition to that, I also, once again, used the characters' line of sight to keep anything from becoming dead and static.


And lastly, even in a portrait, composition is important:

The blue arrows are just to show the harmony generated by the oval vignette around the image and how it works in a counter-clockwise motion; the intended direction for the eye to move within the image. I have noticed that I tend to be more attracted to circular compositions in my work (not they'res anything wrong with other types), I guess just because they're the easiest for me to make sure that I'm not encountering any weird problems of leading the viewer's interest off-page. I like to think of it almost like recycling the interest.
The pink arrows begin at the main area of attention, the eyes. The viewer's eye should then be seduced into traveling down her lock of hair straight into the glass she's holding. In addition to her hair being a straight vertical line, the liquid in the glass itself is very highly saturated and draws attention to the lower portion of the portrait. Her hand is positioned in such a way that the directions of the fingers point the viewer's eye inward, and back towards the opposing arm. The arm then brings the attention back around, full circle, and goes right back to the face.


I hoped this is somewhat helpful for anyone who might be struggling with their compositions or if anyone was just curious as to how I work. Hope to be making more posts like this when i get the chance!