Art Lessons - learn design and 'instinctive' proportion
You probably have quite definite ideas about your preferred option ... and if I said I preferred No.2 you may
decide I should seek serious counselling or some other form of professional help.
But most paintings do have accents or points of natural interest. Sometimes these are the areas of maximum
contrast (lightest against darkest), other times it is a color accent (hue), or in a narrative painting, it could be an
area of high dramatic intent - or it may even be a combination of all three. There can, of course, be dominant,
secondary and many other minor accents. The question is: where to place them within a defned space so they
look right?Without explaining the complexities of physics, calcalus or harmonic proportion (all of which I forgot as soon as
I gave up my promising career as a rocket scientist - I ran out of chalk). Still, I have found the following method
a helpful starting point for the humble painter.- For primary accents - corners of the center rectangle.
Try and counterpoint a dominant accent with a two secondary or some minor accents (mostly outside the
rectangle).Remember, everything is a balance with the relationship of all the parts to each other as they are to be
sympathetic to the whole. Extra accents could lie on the corners of the second rectangle as shown below.Remember the diagonals are powerful lines in any composition (below).http://www.geocities.com/~jlhagan/lessons/design.htm (2 of 4)1/13/2004 3:45:57 AM