Composition for Visual Artists | Week 1: Introduction to Composition

[New Masters Academy]

We are pleased to share with you a 10-week long class brought to you by Art Mentors! In this class, renowned Disney art director and instructor, Bill Perkins, will teach Composition for Artists. This class will comprehensively break down the fundamentals of design and artistic composition. You will learn how to gain a better understanding of art as a language in order to instill more meaning in your own work. In this first lesson, Bill will give an introduction to visual components of composition, patterns and values, image clarity and story, and designing matrices.

Materials

• Conté a Paris Sketching Pencil – Black

[CesarAndrade]

I just love the way bill breaks down things, and this whole rational, yet not prescriptive approach to composition is just what I needed; it makes you think about what is going and why without going to the bogus extremes some contemporary art tries to; thank you so much for bringing these lessons to us NMA and thanks to bill for sharing his invaluable knowledge! Looking foward to discuss these lessons with anyone interested and apply them in my own work.

[andresclements]

Same here. Just stated but ‘Primaries of design’ makes so much sense, have never encountered these elements treated so practically before.

[CesarAndrade]

Yes, that bit was particularly brilliant! What I love this is medium agnostic, and so useful all around. I am planning on making an actual printable chart or something with this information for quick reference.

[andresclements]

Yea, ditto – in fact, I have some potential sketchbook/artwork ideas for just that.

I’ve not gotten much further than that yet, 2 hours into the 20 h, and only have 8 days or so left on here :-(. One concern is it seems to be moving a bit slowly, although I get that the time spent looking at and clarifying an annotating everything is in itself stimulating and productive. Just hoping it moves deeper and quicker into the application and wondering if I should focus more on something else in this tiny little window of NMA free-trial opportunity…

I’m torn between the importance of composition and the potential of the sketchbook-as-laboratory that I’m getting out of Steve Huston’s new series.

 

 

[CesarAndrade]

Hmm interesting question. I think bill’s content does require a bit more patience to see how it is applied. If you want a few more immediate examples on how he does apply it, I suggest you take his color bootcamp series insetad of this. I feel this series specifically is more in the “advanced” category of things and requires in-depth study, specially to reach a conclusion on how you might use this information in your own work. In the color bootcamps, he talks about many of the same things, but goes nitty gritty almost immediately, and makes you apply what he is talking about in the lecture itself. Since they are more demo oriented, it has less broad information, but very useful nonetheless.

Huston’s is also great, specially just how effortessly he draws examples applying his concepts while explaining, which makes it much more evident and easy to grasp, but whatever you choose to do, you will be getting great value. What I tend to do, is to play videos at 1.5 speed, specially if they seem a bit slow. It is fast enough that  it shaves off a whole lot of time in the consumption phase of learning, but not too fast to impair understanding.

[kimbowmansmith]

Does anybody know if Bill Perkins usually rests his hand or fingers down on the paper at all when he is drawing? He seems to hold the pencil like a wand, but I cant tell from the videos if his hand is hovering just above the paper or if his hand or the backs of his fingers are touching it. I know this isn’t a composition related question, but I’m just terribly curious.

[dare_321]

Just to confirm..week 1 doesn’t have any assignments right? loving the knowledge!

[Naomi Robson]

I hope that you are all doing so well! Loving these videos!

I am on the section where he is talking about the “Golden Section” and the “Golden Rectangle” and he brought up how he would use mathematics to determine how to scale an object given that movement (e.g., if had a tree that was 5 inches tall in front of a tree that was 2 1/2 inches tall, the tree in front would move twice as fast).

How does he go about this? What equation is he using to make these calculations?

Thanks!

[Jose Torres]

Hello

would be possible add the transcrip or subtitles?

[Jonathan Quintana]

In the last image I would have liked to see the trees moving because of the wind and not so straight

[Author]

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