This is going to sound quite bad from someone coming from an art orientated course, but I am awful with composition, it just never clicked with me.
Ok, when I say composition, I mean the rule of thirds
Whenever I heard “composition in art” people would always go on about the rule of thirds, it was like a mysterious legend whispered in my fine art class that was prophesised to make my work 100x better. So I thought “Hey, I could figure this out!” so I tried. And spectacularly failed, I had no idea what on earth I was doing.
As I got to university, everyone seemed to have picked it up but me. Admittedly I was ashamed of myself and I just ducked my head down and hid till colour theory came up (admittedly an awful idea looking back at things, but I was stupid, embarrassed and too darn proud back then)
So imagine my absolute glee when I heard it was the one of the first things we look at in year 2. But this year I promised myself I would ask more and worry less.
One mini panic and a volley of questions later, I found I learned quite a bit, I took a lot of notes, but most importantly I learned that the rule of thirds is not the be all and end all. (Although I still hate it with a passion)
I never knew how playful you could be with composition, for instance I was told of one artist who used pentagrams, and others whom believed certain compositions imbued their images with some kind of divinity.
This got me thinking, I love mathematics (I’m terribly rusty sadly but that can be fixed with enough coffee and hard work) I bet I could have a go at that?
So next week (and over to the week after that, as I’ll be away on the weekends) I’m going to try to use interesting grids and patterns and make 30(?) cool looking thumbnails, maybe it would be wise to look at some of MC Eschers work?
On a Side note, I got thinking about what i would do if i could talk to my first year self and I figured if I could go back in time and give myself some tips all I would really say is:
-don’t be sacred, if you find something that you struggle with, don’t over think things. A tip that has served me wonderfully is when you are studying make a layer and write small jokes or funny speech bubbles to cheer yourself up. It’s going to suck the first few times, no if’s nor but’s so you might as well have fun with it (not to mention the more down you get, the less you learn and the less likely you are going to stick to the study)
-Work smart, study what you want to study, nothing else matters. If you want to study anatomy, no point in rendering a tree, if you want to study how artists use composition just put the grid on and paint what you see. The results are garish but you learn.
-Never give up, a man who is walking is still outrunning a man who is sitting down.