Tutorial

Composition Game

As I promised in an earlier post here’s a simple game in order to train your eye to see if your composition is right:

  1. First of all you need a piece of cardboard (21 x 15 cm / 8 x 6 inch).
  2. Divide it into 4 equal parts.
  3. Additionally cut out at least 4 different shapes in various sizes and if possible colors.
  4. Try placing them on the cardboard in any order you can think of (you can also change the number) and try to portion the empty space the way I showed you to do.
  5. As a variation you can make many more papers, divide each in 4 different parts, lay the figures down and draw only their outlines. Now you can lift them up and get a better overview of the overall arrangement between empty space and occupied space as the different shapes now appear as one single shape vs. the background.

In my opinion it’s a more fun way to start dealing with the topic and it really can help you get an eye for this sort of things. You should definitely try it out and see for yourself 🙂

Oh, and here’s a quick pic on how my first “compo-game” looked like:

my composition game

in For Prospective Students / Tutorial  by Savina 0 comments

Preparations for Qualification Test-Composition

The more knowledge you have about art the better your chances are to pass the qualifications. Sounds logical, doesn’t it? It’s not necessary to read tons of books about art history and visit museums every day, but there are some VERY basic things you ought to know.

One of which is composition. Many beginners don’t really pay attention to it and prefer concentrating on sole figure or object drawing. That’s a big mistake! The first thing an artist has to consider when planning his work is the composition of his idea on the format. Only after that does the actual sketching begin. In order to find out which composition works best for your image you should scribble quite a lot and try out different things.

I’ve prepared some very useful information for the readers who’ve never dealt with the topic. There are three basic steps you should follow when preparing the composition:

  1. Divide your format in 4 equal parts.
  2. Place the objects (imagine them or scribble first) and try to keep the empty space equal on the left and right side.
  3. Push objects to the left if right object is bigger and the other way round.

Here are some images which will help you understand what I’m trying to say:

This is the easiest and fundamental knowledge on composition, but it should be enough for the qualification test. Next time I’ll introduce to you a small game in order to train what you just learned and get familiar with it really quickly.

Please do not forget that it couldn’t hurt to know more on any of the preparation topics! I’m giving you the information you really should know in order to raise your success chances 🙂

in For Prospective Students / Tutorial / University/College  by Savina 0 comments