Artists, including painting, illustration, photography, etc, all those 2D forms, do you carefully follow the rules of composition? Flowing lines, rule of thirds, the golden section, etc
Or do you use your instincts to place elements in your pics? That looks good about there, and that should balance out that over here…
Perhaps it’s a combination of both.
Personally I find that if I think too hard about composition, my natural instincts get buried, and all the enrgy disappears from the final image. I like to be free-flowing with how I compose a picture.
I’m no great artist, though, and rarely am in a situation where my work is observed critically, so maybe I’m missing out on crucial contributions…
I’m a decorative artist (cabinetmaker), and, yes, I do use rules.
The golden section is one, and the orders of architecture are also significant.
I’m currently teaching myself the layout methods for gothic art.
I consider myself rather grounded in the tradition of the trade. Sadly, this is rather rare. A lot of folks are getting into the trade without any regard for what has gone before them.
depends what im doing. in my day job (packaging/product design) i pretty much have to follow guidelines such as thirds, ideal landscape etc, it doesnt look right in a commercial sense otherwise.
my personal painting work follows whatever i think looks right. i used to lecture in perspective, life drawing and painting technique, so its not like i dont how to use it, i just choose to ignore it depending on what my subject is.ie dont paint, feeeeel. overworking things has killed a great deal of paintings. if it looks good in a rough state or the prep looks good, use that instead.(although this too depends on what and who youre doing it for. i apply this to digital artwork also.
the portraits i do (mainly from photos) follow classical guidelines (left eye down the centreline everytime) because again, youre doing it for above someones fireplace/on their wall for them to treasure, not some bold art statement, although abstract backgrounds often creep in to replace the generally hideous backing school and supermarket photography hacks use. its all about showing the subject in their best light, upto the point of removing blemishes, replacing things the client doesnt like about the photo etc.
as i always told the kids, you need to know the traditional rules before you can discard them and do your own thing.
and IMHO, if youre not making a mess, youre not doing it right.
I am self-taught (if taught is the right word) and don’t really have/know any rules to follow. I just look for balance and try to create something that feels right to me.
Do you have a link to any of your work online, GuanoLad?
After years and years I’ve (hopefully) ingrained all the major principles.
I don’t ever consciously think about specific rules, though, I just move things around till they look “right” to me.
I doubt anyone uses those rules.
One of the greatest crocks was when Wonderful World of Disney kept pushing the idea that all great artists used the Golden Rectangle/Ratio in their paintings. A generation took that as common knowledge. But it was a crock, same as their show where lemmings all dove off a cliff. Yet we fell for it. We were kids and he was a god and TV was truth.
Personally, I always find that my compositions end up a lot more symetrical than I like, just by accident. Each one looks okay, but in a show it’s a bunch of centered portraits, like a series of postage stamps.
Smiling bandit may have been glib (isn’t that a fun word? say it over and over again. Glib glib glib glib glib) about the rules, but s/he’s right. Rules are important and when starting out it’s best to learn them. As one gains experience and confidence though, the rules become…just guidelines. Breaking the rules is when personal style really developes.
FYI, Walt Disney had nothing to do with the golden rectangle; IIRC it’s been around since the Italian Renaissance. If you saw a Disney info piece about it, they were just “reporting” on something they had nothing whatsoever to do with.
BTW, if your compositions don’t turn out how you want them, it might not be a bad idea to learn some of the rules, just so you can break them. I’m largely self taught too, but I did eventually go to art school as an adult, and having learned all those “rules” I understood better how people see a painting.
In other words, those “rules” are probably more about how we “read” a painting than they are directions for making one, and as such they can be helpful to an artist in understanding his/her audience’s perspective.
Not really. You could look at my 3D stuff here, which has a little bit of what I’m talking about, but I’m a storyboard artist most often (oh, and I make desktop wallpapers for my porn site) so composition is relevant, but finickety accuracy is not required.