Looking at Composition
Lately I’ve been a bit preoccupied with the size of my work -how large or small I should make the canvas and what affect that would have on the viewer. Now I would like to talk a bit about composition, and how the combination of the lines and colours affects the overall feel of the painting.
During a tutorial with Jane, I explained that some of my larger paintings were looking too complex/ disordered and that the colours and lines didn’t work well together. She suggested making a cropping tool to see how the painting would look If I cropped it in certain areas.
I made a simple cropping tool out of two sheets of paper that when meet form a frame.
This exercise has the effect of magnifying the textures of the painting. When I zoomed in on a particular work I was fascinated how the entire composition has changed. The painting now has an entirely different focus- and because I was cropping the paintings quite a lot it has the effect of making the shapes bigger and making you really see the subtle changes in value that we’re apparent before.
For example when looking at Untitled close up (second image down) you can really start to appreciate the transition between the two colours and see each individual pattern made by the brush.
Looking at works in this scale draws the viewers attension to what was peviously overlooked, I think it would be interseting to make a series of minute works 5cm by 10cm for example to see what this effect would be like in actuality.
