The Art of Scrap, Friday, Period 4
The class was meeting back in the classroom again this week, and Dean was leaning back against his desk, requisite coffee in hand, and more coffee off to the side in case the students wanted any.
It was kind of expected of him, now. And Dean would hate to disappoint.
"Today," he said, kicking into his lecture without preamble, because his students probably didn't need him to hold their hands while they poured coffee or anything, "we're going to start talking about some of the basics of composition. You might want to go back and revise your armatures or your sketches after this class, depending on whether or not you hear something that might come in handy."
He nodded to a stack of papers on his desk. He wasn't going to make his students write notes, but it probably wouldn't hurt them to at least have them on hand if they decided they actually wanted to make use of them.
"There are plenty of things to keep in mind when planning the composition of a piece. Color can draw the eye to certain places on a picture or a sculpture. But then, negative, empty space can do the same. There's something to be said for spirals, and for triangles, and for spacing and for repetition. A spiral is a shape that you see all the time in nature, and your eye is naturally drawn around one when you see it. A triangle, meanwhile, will draw the eye around to the three main points that make it up. A bunch of things put close together can make your attention bounce from one object to the next, and repeating shapes will do the same thing."
So, really, art was about two-thirds psychology, when you boiled it all down.
"And then there's the staple, the Rule of Thirds. Which is pretty much what it sounds like. If you cut an image or a sculpture or a piece of architecture up by drawing two lines vertically and two lines horizontally, so that it's broken up into thirds, people are going to look at whatever falls on those lines. So, if you're doing an abstract piece, you might want to think about that rule when you work out where to put the things you want people to see. "
Dean took a moment to let that sink in, drank some more coffee, and then continued.
"Today, we're going to practice composition," he said. "On each of your desks, there's a container with stuff like bottlecaps and buttons and paper clips in there. I want you to use them to create some kind of quick example on your desk of one of the composition basics that I mentioned today. And when you're done, if you're feeling comfortable with this stuff, feel free to work on your sculptures or your sketches. I'd like you guys to have your armatures done for next class if possible, so that you're not struggling when it gets later in the semester and there's not enough time to pull together something good from scratch."
[Open and semi-educational!]
It was kind of expected of him, now. And Dean would hate to disappoint.
"Today," he said, kicking into his lecture without preamble, because his students probably didn't need him to hold their hands while they poured coffee or anything, "we're going to start talking about some of the basics of composition. You might want to go back and revise your armatures or your sketches after this class, depending on whether or not you hear something that might come in handy."
He nodded to a stack of papers on his desk. He wasn't going to make his students write notes, but it probably wouldn't hurt them to at least have them on hand if they decided they actually wanted to make use of them.
"There are plenty of things to keep in mind when planning the composition of a piece. Color can draw the eye to certain places on a picture or a sculpture. But then, negative, empty space can do the same. There's something to be said for spirals, and for triangles, and for spacing and for repetition. A spiral is a shape that you see all the time in nature, and your eye is naturally drawn around one when you see it. A triangle, meanwhile, will draw the eye around to the three main points that make it up. A bunch of things put close together can make your attention bounce from one object to the next, and repeating shapes will do the same thing."
So, really, art was about two-thirds psychology, when you boiled it all down.
"And then there's the staple, the Rule of Thirds. Which is pretty much what it sounds like. If you cut an image or a sculpture or a piece of architecture up by drawing two lines vertically and two lines horizontally, so that it's broken up into thirds, people are going to look at whatever falls on those lines. So, if you're doing an abstract piece, you might want to think about that rule when you work out where to put the things you want people to see. "
Dean took a moment to let that sink in, drank some more coffee, and then continued.
"Today, we're going to practice composition," he said. "On each of your desks, there's a container with stuff like bottlecaps and buttons and paper clips in there. I want you to use them to create some kind of quick example on your desk of one of the composition basics that I mentioned today. And when you're done, if you're feeling comfortable with this stuff, feel free to work on your sculptures or your sketches. I'd like you guys to have your armatures done for next class if possible, so that you're not struggling when it gets later in the semester and there's not enough time to pull together something good from scratch."
[Open and semi-educational!]