Good Shapes For Good Composition

Paintings, no matter how realistic, are simply collections of shapes that have color and value added to them. One factor that contributes to the success of the painting is structure of the individual shapes.

Paintings are made up of, or more properly, composed of shapes. There are two types of shapes in every representational painting - Objective Shapes and Compositional Shapes.

Objective Shapes are those that represent a literal object – barns, trees, roads, streams, fields, mountains, etc.  The initial line drawing of your scene is mostly a collection of Objective Shapes. 

Compositional Shapes are those shapes that form the underlying structure of your painting. They are Abstract Shapes, not meant to represent a recognizable object.

Both types of shapes need to be “Good” shapes. That is, they should be visually interesting to attract attention and help strengthen the composition.

Good Shapes

GOOD SHAPES

Both Objective and Compositional Shapes should be “Good Shapes.”

A “Good Shape” has

1.             At least two different dimensions – think wider than tall, or taller than wide

2.             Is Oblique (diagonal) or has an Oblique Thrust - think of these as slanted lines or edges

3.             Has Incidents /Interlocks at the edge - these are essentially ‘hooks’ that join overlapping or adjacent shapes.

The main subject in the painting below is the interconnected barn buildings. This is one ‘objective shape’ with the visual symbols that the viewers mind will interpret as a barn.

If we isolate the barn shape, walls only without the snow covered roofs, it looks like this:

It has all the characteristics of a “good shape”.

Notice that the overall shape is wider than tall. It has multiple oblique edges (orange arrows) and over all oblique thrust (top orange arrow). And it has multiple incidents along the edges (green circles)

Composition is a deliberate arrangement of shapes within the borders of a piece of paper.  You have complete control over what shapes to include and where they are to be placed. This can be a scary, uncomfortable notion for us literal-minded humans.

It seems easier and more comfortable to rely on the subject – or more often a photo of the subject – to tell us what to include (usually everything!) and where to place it (exactly where the photo says it is!). 

Your best compositions/paintings will be those in which you take on the responsibility of deciding what to move, change or eliminate and where to place those things that have been retained.

This step needs to be conscious, deliberate, and purposeful.  The purpose, of course, is to create a dynamic composition of two-dimensional shapes.  Conscious, deliberate thinking is needed when deciding what objects to eliminate and, for those objects to be kept, how they will be changed and/or moved.

Starting with the idea of creating good shapes from the elements in your scene is one good first step.