Composition: A Painter's Guide to Basic Problems and Solutions

How do you pull together all the elements of a painting into a unified, artistic whole? This book presents a new approach--especially suited to beginners--to the process of creative pictorial composition. Adapting the creative pictorial composition. Adapting the same integrative process by which advanced students are trained, the author shows how to structure all the component parts of a picture into a series of rhythmic and harmonious relationships. Each chapter consists of three sections: 1. A discussion of a particular compositional problem. 2. A series of corresponding projects in creative composition for the reader to do. 3. A variety of case histories analyzing how old and contemporary masters -- such as Braque, Beughel, Cezanne, Copley, Daumier, Delacroix, Dubuffet, El Greco, Gainsborough, Goya, Homer, Matisse, Picasso, Rembrandt, Seurat, Velazquez, and Wyeth, among others--handled the problem. By following this three-part format, the reader is encouraged to learn by solving the problems that the masters worked out in their compositions. Under the expert guidance of the author, the reader learns how to see two-dimensional shape relationships, light and dark value relationships, and color relationships. He is then introduced to negative space, "crowded" space, vertical vs. horizontal composition, "empty" space, as well as how to express mood with texture and line. Finally, the author introduces the illusion of three dimensions. David Friend, for many years a practicing painter and art instructor, and author of The Creative Way to Pain, once again shows that even the beginner can develop the critical visual awareness and artistic insight that will enable him to create artwork he can be proud of. 192 pages, 8 1/4 x 11, 160 black-and-white illustrations, 16 full-color plates, Index.