how do i create better compositions?

>>2967304
Like anything else, practice and experience and study. It's a well covered subject in art education, google "art composition" and start reading.

There's no "secret" to it. Some people have a better feel or eye for it than others.

>>2967304
not like that

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Think of simple shapes, how do they relate to each other and how do they relate to the space of your canvas
I took the picture you posted and outlined what I'm talking about. The individual objects have been outlined and the background was given some lines because it has an special effect.
The magenta lines show the 3 thids rule, the simplest way to position the objects in a composition tho my lines are a bit off you still can see the relationships they convey

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>>2967304

1. Avoid kissing parallel/kissing/shared/mirrored lines/silhouettes

Try doing what sinix does in 5:45 :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJIWllIMHsg

2. Have strong focal point, max 2 that don't collide with each other. This is achieved mostly by having one area of painting with higher contrast.

See how Will Terry critiques a girl's painting and changes composition at 17:55:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntSIaIkzaTo

Generally it's nice to hear him and try to complete that challenge of drawing 50 distinct objects in the illustration without cluttering it.

3. Draw "outside of canvas". See at your painting in OP, there's a statue on the right side that is cut by frame of the painting. Do that though only with large objects and don't overdo it.

4. Put some bigass object in the foreground of the painting, make it like in 3 cut by the frame.

5. Make stuff dynamic, you can tilt the horizon, use atypical camera positions in three-point perspective, even use different lens/curvilinear perspective

6. Start from the simplest silhouette (draw it beforehand, experiment with some) and keep it in mind during the painting process, not losing the focus.

7. Think for a second, goddamnfuck, you people seem to be all hands and no brains, fucking famous painters did different versions of their paintings and did studies and sketches in different media before to see what works for initial underdrawing, colors, composition etc.

How many hours have you spend on drawing? Did you ever reach 20h? 50?

8. Read "Framed Ink". Commencing dump

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>>2968070
>>2967304

9. Also avoid false friends like that stupid fuck >>2968016

All those rules of thirds and whatnot are biggest memes out there. You just need to have in mind not to have vastly unbalanced composition, that is, keep relatively important things closer to center (unless you have some directed high-contrast, there are exceptions) and if you have something on ther left, have also something on ther right but not symmetrical so it won't be boring.

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>>2968074

10. Also I will say what others say everywhere, especially on /ic/ - value is important, it creates depth.

Simple use is it to create atmospheric perspective (objects farther away are more blurred, shifted in value), but you can manipulate it in other ways.

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>>2968079

Composition is compound, complex feature, some say that it is overall and emergent quality that doesn't exist on its own, but comes from properly utilizing other fundamentals I spoke of before.

I don't agree with it, but what I agree with - think. THINK. Heavily, search, try, experiment with your idea, try to bring it to life, crystalize. Seriously, everything influences your painting, down to even pigments used in your paint and yes, it doesn't apply only to oils, things like transparency or lightfastness vary greatly in watercolors too.

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>>2968085

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>>2968088

>>2968090
>>2968085
>>2968079

One more food for thought:

Download some good movies in HD (get torrents that weight more than 1GB), watch it, pause in interesting moments, study.

Another thing - take photographs or those HD screenshots (remember also that boards like >>>/hr/ are a thing), choose high-contrast piece of them, crop, paint.

You find interesting compositions for your paintings in such a way, even from a shot of pornstar's anus.

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>>2968099

Actually there's even one, grabbed fresh from /hr/, enjoy. Notice that you can observe very slight atmospheric perspective dividing pussy and the rest of background from the foreground with buttocks and anus.

Notice also highlight at the center point and how the lines of the anus converge pleasing to the middle. There's symmetry, but not complete, there's interesting assymetry and some hair here and there only adds to the soothing sight that this anus is.

Here, seriously, grab it, download, load in Photoshop, go grayscale, adjust values, look at filters, study, learn.

>>2968109

Oh, also notice that value shifts are quite subtle. Aim for that, beginners usually make darks too dark and light areas too light. You need contrast and everythng, but control it. If you operate with color, remember also that IRL you can't work with some colors in the value range that you have, you need to adjust your values otherwise your reds will be pinks etc.

Good photos
Good movies
Master paintings
Draw from life and take pictures of anything you like

>>2968074
>>2968079
>>2968085
>>2968088
>>2968090
>>2968099
Based anon. Good advice right here.

>>2968074
Compositional tips by comic book artists (a type of manchild) taking cues from modernists are even bigger meme than rule of thirds.

>>2968551

>waaah, I got told and now have to fart something so I won't seem like a total retard recommending "golden spiral" news age shit

Honestly, if you have nothing smart to say, just don't say anything.

>>2968556
I don't know what you're talking about. 2968551 is my first and only post in this thread. What's so great about 1950's compositional memes?

>>2968551
>disregarding Framed Ink on composition
Oh boy, has it been a while since the last time I thought to myself 'ngmi' as a legitimate concern instead of a joke.

>>2968117
Thanks for the dump anon, you're really being helpful.

>>2969844
>hurr you need to learn this very new super secret resource that very few successful artists know about or you won't be successful

???

>>2970259
Coming out 7 years ago it's new enough for people who are already working professionals not to "need" it, but that's not the point.

No one needs composition as much as comic book artists - movies have dialogue and movement and photos don't need a narrative to be good, but a comic needs to create movement and narrative with its composition.

And why would you write
>super secret resource very few successful artists know about
if you have first-hand experience with the book? Did you even take a look before criticizing it?

If you disagree with the above, I have one question - can you name a single better learning resource for composition?

I'm not trying to roast you btw, but if there's a compositional redpill, I'd like to take it.

Read Alberti's "De pictura"

>>2967304

practice thumbnails

>>2967304
What type of work are you making, OP?

Landscapes, try Edgar Payne's Composition of Outdoor Painting.
Still Lifes? How about Carol Marine?

>>2968016
I symboled the shit out of that before your comment props for going the extra mile

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>>2967304
Look up "rabatment of the rectangle" and look up "dynamic symmetry" while you are at it. I'd like to say more but the people here think you are some kook if you talk about the composition techniques the old masters used.

>>2968109
dat hair

>>2971956
The reason why the old masters used them is because in Renaissance there was a belief that Gods communicate with us through geometry in art, which got carried on from master to student until people only thought about how to do it, but not why.

Aligning elements to lines that flow from one to the other, yes, that's what gesture is, but could you explain why it would be important the human brain recognized shapes that don't even occur in the nature?
There isn't even a frame around real life paintings, you always see a cut-out of a full scenery, so drawing abstractions relative to the frame has no logic behind it.

>>2972441
>Aligning elements to lines that flow from one to the other, yes, that's what gesture is, but could you explain why it would be important the human brain recognized shapes that don't even occur in the nature?
We seek order. Rectangles don't occur in nature yet we like them, we like the order they bring. Rectangles have all this implied structure and when it's utilized, it subconsciously clicks to us. The same is true for all other geometric shapes.

>There isn't even a frame around real life paintings, you always see a cut-out of a full scenery, so drawing abstractions relative to the frame has no logic behind it.
Are you saying that because there is a world implied beyond a canvas that there is no point to utilizing the shape of the canvas for compositions? I already explained that it is actually quite important.

>>2972498
>Are you saying that because there is a world implied beyond a canvas that there is no point to utilizing the shape of the canvas for compositions?
Some older paintings have composition set up like a theater (pic related) where the canvas is very important, but that's not the case with OP's image. In these more photo-real compositions it's more like
>creating appealing positive and negative shapes
Great!
>...making them all part of one abstraction
Uh, wait a minute
>...that's defined by the cropping of the image
Dude, no.

Role of the canvas itself doesn't go much further than cropping the scenery.
If you actually followed that abstraction with your alignment, you'd have tangents and parallel lines everywhere. Major problem.

You can use it to group elements together and simplify their silhouettes, but don't just draw rectangles and triangles because someone told you it magically makes your compositions better.

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>>2972541
(forgot pic related)

>>2972441
>The reason why the old masters used them is because in Renaissance there was a belief that Gods communicate with us through geometry in art, which got carried on from master to student until people only thought about how to do it, but not why.

That is utter horseshit.

Composition is creating an image that is balanced, and is attractive to the eye. Composition can create tension, drama, and lead the eye, creating a narrative and highlighting the focus. Using compositional elements helps the brain recognize spatial relationships, perspective, and scale.

Art is not simpy duplicating nature. The skills to do that are more a craft, than an art, like draftsmanship. Art is using nature, and exploring and displaying it in a way that's meaningful to the viewer, even if it's not 100% natural.

To state that artists don't know why they use composition is one of the most laughable comments ever posted on this forum. The writings of past artists, masters and non-masters alike, go into great detail about composition and why it's used, and what works and what doesn't. Those basic principles have carried through into photography and film and even game design.

It's comments like yours that make me feel more and more that is if someone wants to pursue art, they should avoid this forum completely, because of the horrifically bad ideas floating around and presented as advice.

>>2972542
The Last Supper is a great piece to discuss composition. He took the most boring composition - the grid, and laid out the scene in the most static, boring way imaginable, table straight, head on, the room a simple cube, etc.

And then, he did something wonderful.

He used the bodies of the Christ and the Disciples to tell the story. He tells their place in the group, their emotions, and the drama. Everything leads to Christ. The angles of the wall lead you to him. The disciples lead you to him, because they're all looking at him, but one. The bright windows creates a halo around him. The colors lead the eyes to the brightest points - Christ. He creates a sense of disorder and action around Christ, but he's still and quiet. His head is the vanishing point. Judas is leaning back into shadow. He also used a theme of 3 a lot, to indicate the Holy Trinity.

It's why this fresco is considered one of the great pieces of art in the world, it's almost perfect - the color composition, the literal composition, the lighting, and the narrative. He took the most boring, basic stage - a cube, and created a masterpiece in it.

Anyway, here's some basics of composition:

Planes of space. This is how we show depth. Background, mid-ground, foreground. Simple in concept, and execution, but wasn't really used well until the Mona Lisa:

"The painting was one of the first portraits to depict the sitter in front of an imaginary landscape, and Leonardo was one of the first painters to use aerial perspective.[43] The enigmatic woman is portrayed seated in what appears to be an open loggia with dark pillar bases on either side. Behind her, a vast landscape recedes to icy mountains. Winding paths and a distant bridge give only the slightest indications of human presence. Leonardo has chosen to place the horizon line not at the neck, as he did with Ginevra de' Benci, but on a level with the eyes, thus linking the figure with the landscape and emphasizing the mysterious nature of the painting.[40]"

Arial perspective is the use of value and color to indicate distance - the further away something is, the lighter it will look to the eye (in sunlight).

Next up is the grid. You align everything to a grid in the painting - everything is upright, or horizontal. Boring.

So you throw in angles. The mona lisa is not sitting at a 90 degree angle to the viewer, she's at a 3/4 angle. This is more interesting to the eye, and helps create depth.

The overall idea is to move the eye around the painting, ending up at the focus. You can use the vanishing point, color, lighting, and the actual landscape to do this. You can use voids to create tension. You can create loops in the work, to lead the eye around and help create the narrative.

Like anything, start simple. It's like designing a stage set. Keep it simple, and figure out what works, and what doesn't. Build up to more complex compositions. Still life subjects are great to explore composition with, using the objects, the background, and the lighting, to compose the scene.

More advanced topics would be the Golden Mean, and Rules of Thirds. That's for later

>>2968016
You missed the main compositional part of the painting - the loop he created to lead the eye around the scene. The human eye looks for eyes and letters first, so the woman in the middle draws your eye - then her arm leads you to the woman ion the right. If you go past it to the sculpture, the leg points you right back to the woman. Her face leads you to the bush, and the bush has a subtle void in the middle, that uses the sky color to lead you back to the woman in the middle.

THAT is composition. The grids you drew simply help form the stage, and the depth of field. The drama, or the tension, or the loop, is all in the figures and props.

His color composition is the same - the background does not draw the eye at all, the marble doesn't either - the most prominent objects have the most saturated color. And with those colors, he creates curves to lead the eye - the central woman's dress is a backwards C that leads to her arm, that leads to the second woman, whose dress and upraised arm leads to her face, which points at the brightly colored flowers, which has a strip of sky blue in the middle that leads you back to the central woman.

The central woman's face is the focal point of the painting. Everything leads right back there.

>>2975190
>>2975199
>>2975212
>>2975221
/ic/ is not your art education blog
post your work
sage

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>>2975352
>triggered over people having art-related discussion in /ic/

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>>2975352
>doesn't debate a single point or contribute anything of value
>p-post ur work

Why are you such a fucking faggot. Kill yourself.

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>>2967304
If you want to have a generic shitter compo like everyone else itt and in industries like illustration and CA then listen to them. The best compositions I find are ones that don't really follow any rules, or at least not religiously to the point of being completely lost and helpless without them.

They aim to present the scene or shot in as simplistic a way as possible with little to no forethought/planning because, as with all things, too much thought causes it to become formulaic at worst and mildly predictable at best. Let it come about naturally, let it be truthful.

>>2975352
I don't post anything personal on 4Chan, get used to being disapointed, wanna be tough guy.

This thread is discussing composition, and that's what I'm doing - discussing it. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the mods.

A real artist would not have a problem with any of this.

Now go cry somewhere else.

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>>2975440
>I don't post anything personal on 4Chan, get used to being disapointed, wanna be tough guy.
Why are you conceited enough to think you'r contributing to 4chan without actually contributing anything of substance besides walls of text. Oh wait-

>4Chan
That explains it. See, time after time you show evidence of what a newfag you are. The c is not capitalized, no one calls it a forum, and if you're triggered over people saying dumbshit on here and feel like you're God's gift to /ic/ who's going to fix everything by writing a book and talking people to death... well the one thing I find reassuring is your type doesn't last too long on here. You're too good for us right? So you'll soon be on your way back to redit or wherever else you think you get your quality discussion.

Good thing, the last thing 4chan needs are people who need to write an essay everytime they see someone that's wrong on the internet.

Well, my message to you is really "welcome to 4chan, looking forward to your leaving soon"

>inb4 hur dur I'm an oldfag I've been here since last summer
Not. Fooling. Anyone.

>>2975484
Oh, look, he wants to run his mouth more. He must be very, very upset.

Now, did you have anything about composition you'd like to add? Or was your aim here just to prove how big of an asshole you are?

OH NOES I miscapitalized a letter. Fucking seriously, idiot?

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>>2975503

Don't bother giving him (you)'s hes a smugposting shitter.

>>2975352
>The art board dedicated to discussing art is not for discussing art
>Announcing your sage

>>2975190
Dude, chill. I wasn't even talking about composition, I was questioning the use of dynamic symmetry and compositional abstractions - which is only a fraction under the big topic of composition, whose basics you proceeded to explain to me for some reason.

Could you at least read the post you're replying to, for christ's sake.

>>2970293
The theme is that teaching materials are being recommended as necessary to being successful whereas the existence of successful artists before, and even during who did not have exposure to such materials necessarily means that they are not necessary. That it was published 7 years ago is largely irrelevant. It could be published earlier on in the last century, yet still known to very few successful artists.

And since they are called fundamentals, it is implied that one set of learning materials is suitable for a completely different art. For whatever reason, comic book composition has become highly recommended for composition of any sort of 2d visual art. Perhaps they are ideal for comic book art since, after all, the teaching materials are informed by the needs, definition, and established paradigm of that art. Compositions for comic book panels are very different from many art works such as the one posted in the OP's image, because the needs, definition, viewers, purpose, and theory are different. Comic book compositional materials are designed so that the artist could produce a variety of differently composed panels in sequence quickly, and the panels of which are rarely complete works of art in themselves.

Actually, even the compositions of someone from the late 1800s would be generally different from those of the previous generations. It is rather like musical composition. There are different rules and guides for different modes. The answer of how to create better compositions lies first in knowing what it is you want for your art. Not all information that one might need are published or even possible to be written down to rules, and any that are published however much monopoly they hold in recommendation are not necessarily useful depending on your art.

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>The god of /ic/ Loomis briefly acknowledges dynamic symmetry, and in the following page shares his own compositional theory loosely based on it.
>inb4 "REEEEE DELETE THIS" and "DYNAMIC SYMMETRY DOESN'T EXIST"

>>2968085
>>2968088

i haven't been trained to think in memes so these compositions don't make any sense. I don't think of any of those ideas

>law of thirds is a meme
>i like unbalanced composition

this is why you are all crap

>>2980369
No, this is why you're limited to such a predictable/formulaic comp every time.

>>2980369
Rule if thirds is a meme, it is watered down dynamic symmetry.

This vid triggers the normies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ7fahM5sBQ

>>2978891
I have to politely disagree.
The goal is to create a balanced, clear and visually appealing composition within your work. For that you use the principles of rhythm, contrast, symmetry and how they affect human brain. Symmetry is rigid, formal and stops motion created by rhythm. Contrast draws your attention and needs to be balanced with rhythm to create visual interest.
Distribution of detail, hard vs. soft edges and directional lines, all those principles are based on nature. They aren't rules, they are tools and suggestions that were discovered rather than invented and they apply just as much to comics as to illustration, movies or even sculpture.
Switching between mediums is not enough, you'd probably have to wait thousands of years of human evolution to see those principles changing.

>rule of thirds is for guillible idiots!
>use this dynamic symmetry (tm) technique like old masters (tm) instead
>even master painter Loomis recommends it so it is GOAT

I don't know if it is Americans or whole /ic/, but seriously, sometimes I am so fucking disgusted with you. I hope your wrists will snap.

>>2980432
not gonna make it.

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>>2968074

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>>2980660

>>2980418
Those are the very basic that anyone can figure out. But different forms of art also require compositional devices that are outside of the very basic, which is why there are books on composition that are aimed primarily to comic book. The same again can be said of music; there are very basic principles to music yet there are diverse things that are necessary or helpful for one musical form but not another, and some knowledge that are even utterly injurious for the form if it is applied. If it is assumed that these composition guides are useful not only to the comic book artist or whatever they have a closest kinship to, but to any class in the business of designing, then why can't it be said that whatever advice on composition in Albeti's De Pictura will be useful as well for all designers in equal degree?

An art form could also use the same principles, but invent new ways of representation that are more particular towards that craft. There are many advice that we are told not to do for example, and yet we see greater masters go against the advice of respected teachers. This is because those advice are in good probability specifically made for a particular type of art with different aims. Another example is that you will not see the very popular method of composing with highly abstract black and white thumbnails in artists' sketches before modernism. While no one will deny that they had a sense of composition, arrangements, shapes, and initial visual response, they were not primarily conceived by this means. If it is part of fundamentals, that is, something which is requisite, how is it that artists have done better works without them? It is a new way of thinking about composition that do indeed affect character. Theoretical ideas also guide the process of designing, and in the greatest of works it is not a process of translation that can always be put into teaching, because it is the faculty of spirit and deep personal involvement with the craft.