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8/15/2012 5:55:12 PM

Oh, The Power Of A Good Composition

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa, where due to outside influences, today, we will be discussing composition. Actually, the power of composition. Make that the power of a GOOD composition.

But first you need a setup.

Influence #1. At the Geneva Arts Festival in July, I had a lovely conversation with Lars-Birger Sponberg (ha, look at me, the name dropper!) that included thoughts about this very subject, composition. We discussed rules of composition, and then the breaking of said rules. Is there a line you can't successfully cross between the two? And if so, where the heck is it? And how on earth many years of work experience is required of the artist to be able to recognize it, and understand it? (if you don't know Lars, trust me, he's logged in the time, in excellent fashion)

Influence #2. This morning I was reading @ Fine Art Views Blogs, and so enjoyed Sharon Weaver's blog on constructing the plein air painting. Her advice is obviously applicable far and beyond just the plein air artistic venue, and this is her number one rule: "1) The foundation is the composition. If the composition works the rest of the painting process will be on solid ground."

Influence #3. Less than an hour later, it all played out right in front of me. A perfect case study. I'm sure I've mentioned in a past blog post, that I've added a gig to my daily schedule. I spend two hours @ afternoon doing research work for my spouse's work. Early this morning, coffee mug in hand, I was reading over his shoulder, as we reviewed yesterday's research. I had copy/pasted two articles onto one word doc. Each article had a small photo at the upper left, each followed by about 150-200 words of text.

Now comes that compositional dividing line: the text of the first article did not copy/paste well. Yes, the words were all there in the correct order, but the generations of Microsoft had messed with the spacing. A sentence here, a paragraph down there. Three lines of space at this point, 5 1/2 at the next. And of course, you guessed it. Husband scrolled right through. Spent 15 seconds, tops. Yup, he scrolled right through that pathetic composition, without a single backward glance. Right to the second part of the research, and of course you know the second part was NOT a victim of Microsoft Word generational sparring. Yes, arrangement of blocks of text on a page, is a graphic, to be composed, just as is so with a painting.

I watched (in awe of the power of composition) as husband settled in and read the second part start to finish. Truly, I felt like a scientist with a lab test. As Sharon said in her plein air article "The foundation is the composition", and this morning in my science lab, er, husband's office, I watched it happen. Composition has the power. If yours is scattered and messy, my scientific study (heheh) results say your work is going to get passed right over. Yup, the viewer will zoom right by your stuff, to visually land on the well composed.

I recommend taking thoughts of composition with you when you go to the easel. Oh, the power of a good composition.

Later, Cooper

10/8/2010 2:21:31 PM

Taking Synthesis To Life Drawing

Cooper / Comment on this

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, on a stunning Iowa fall day. We are blessed for sure.

Have I mentioned with the advent of the fall semester at ISU, that life drawing sessions are back on the schedule as well? At the same time, I am revisiting a book on figure drawing, Art Of Drawing The Human Body, one of those books that doesn't seem to have an author, but this one does have a translator, Edgar Fankbonner. Apparently it's first outing was in Spanish.

Anyway, synthesis and life drawing, how can there possibly be a common denominator? ---Sorry to bother you with the dictionary, but really we must, because they lead me to believe if you are actually in synthesizing mode, then you are taking little things and making them into one big thing. As in the able definition of dictionary.com:

the combining of the constituent elements of separate material or abstract entities into a single or unified entity

Now isn't that just a little bit contradictory with what we are taught as artists? Supposedly we are supposed to start with the BIG PICTURE, and then work for the little parts. If necessary. Ha, right away on page 12 of Art Of Drawing The Human Body, Mr Fankbonner translates from Spanish to English that we have to do the synthesis thing, when we are drawing the human figure. Does he really want us to draw all the little parts and then put them together? Surely no. But here's the quote"

Synthesis, or reducing forms to their essential content, is a key factor in drawing correctly.

Maybe Mr Fankbonner is a glass-half-full kind of man, or maybe it's the Spanish to English translation he had to effect to get this thing published, or maybe he's just a little dyslexic, but it sounds to me like he IS saying start with the big picture and draw in the details, not start with the details to get the big picture. Or maybe artist synthesis is a totally different ballgame than normal people's synthesis. Whatever. I'm still pushing for the big picture. Maybe after I get that figured out I can go for some of the little parts, eh?

And then of course, at last night's session, I worked on a small sketch pad, so after all that talk about big, here's a little sketch for you:

Thanks for stopping by and wondering about synthesis with me.

Later, Cooper

4/28/2010 9:29:03 AM

Toast, And Paying Attention To Detail

Cooper / 1 Comment

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa, on a bee-you-tiful Wednesday, April 28th.

I just got back from the morning run---yup---survived yet another one. I was on the homeward bound side of the distance, which means the south end of Chestnut Street. There, amidst the blooming trees smells, was another very distinctive odor: burnt toast. Someone wasn't paying attention to the details, and either the toast didn't pop, or the setting got bumped up---doesn't matter, the result was burnt toast. Somebody wasn't paying attention.

Not paying attention can mess up other things too. Take a painting for instance. You knew I was going to say that, right? :) I would like to point out that burnt toast and a poorly composed painting have some things in common.

1. Lack of attention to detail= poor results.
2. Dismay when you realize what you've done
3. Decision required = live with the mess as is, or clean it up?

I promote that paying attention to details in the rules of composing a painting is pretty much mandatory. Google will tell you a bunch of places to read all those rules, one of my favorites being a blog written by Diane Mize. Basically they all talk about dividing up the space of the canvas and where you put what. Sounds simple, eh? And I would love to say that all the rules of good composition are so firmly planted in my brain, that I don't even have to think, just act. Nope. 'Taint so.

I have been painting away on a large canvas, and decided that yesterday was a good day to take a break from it. I had a photo reference that had been holding on the back burner for a while---it seemed like a good time to pull it out. I'd already spent quite a bit of time with this photo, sketching from it, messing with it on my photo program---I knew how I wanted it to happen. But just for the heck of it, I did the paper cutout "compositional" trick, big paper cutouts resembling the subject matter. I stuck them on the canvas just like I knew they were going to go, and oooops. Why hadn't I seen that before? That lovely (not!) diagonal line running corner to corner right smack dab across the canvas? Now that's a compositional rule lodged in the back of my brain: never cut a canvas in half, especially corner to corner, with a line.

Where was my attention to detail? The toast almost got burnt! Hey, wait---did you see that word "almost"? Maybe I just lucked out, or maybe that was stored away knowledge that nudged me to try one more "compositional experiment" before committing to paint on canvas? Maybe I'm actually getting there, you know, that place of higher knowledge achieved through the school of experience?

Think about the toast. If you don't pay attention to detail and burn the toast, then you've got to decide, do I go ahead and eat it or make another piece? And what about that lingering smell? How long is that going to hang around? And who might see the burnt toast and know that I wasn't paying attention to the details? May I point out to you that paint and canvas are really more of a committment than a piece of bread turned into toast? I suggest that paying attention to the details of a good composition before putting paint on the canvas will make for a happier day. And painting.

Thanks for stopping by.
Later, Cooper