What do planets, fractals and migrating birds all have in common?
They all follow patterns.
We know they do because we notice patterns in the world around us. In fact, our predilection for finding patterns seems so strong that we find them even where none exist.
What does that have to do with composition?
Well, the principle of composition I’ll be talking about in this post relies on pattern for its effectiveness.
Introducing pattern to compositions makes them more compelling. We feel its presence even when we’re not consciously aware that it’s there.
I’ve been practising with pattern in order to improve my compositions, and I think it’s working.
I think it can improve your compositions too.
Forget composition by the rules
After you read this post I hope you will have an understanding of a way to improve your compositions which you may not have considered before, at least not quite in this way.
But let’s get one thing straight. It’s not a ‘rule’ that you can just read up on. You’ll need to put some effort and some practice time in to see results.
If you’ve done any reading about composition,I’m sure you’ll have come across what are commonly called the rules of composition. The rule of thirds is the most popular. The golden mean is a close second. A brief search on the web will turn up many more.
I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news about those rules: if you haven’t developed your compositional and design skills with some regular practice, just knowing about those rules won’t make your pictures any better than they already are.
What I’m going to talk about today will help you make better pictures.
I really believe that if you apply this idea along with Arthur Wesley Dow’s other compositional principles, and put in some practice time with them, your compositions will improve.
Who’s Arthur Wesley Dow? Friends will know I’ve been writing about him and his practical book on composition for a while now. But if you haven’t heard of him before, please bear with me and I’ll explain more fully in a moment.
What you can do – right now – to start improving your compositions
Take the idea that I’m going to describe in this post and practise with it. It’s as simple as that.
I have a simple exercise for you at the end of this post, designed to help you start applying it yourself. It won’t take too long to try it out, and it should be enjoyable. You might be intrigued enough to work with it a little longer. And if you do, you’ll start to make stronger, better balanced, more interesting compositions than you did before.
Really, I’m not kidding.
And there’s no maths involved either, and no rules. You just need to put some practice in.
Pattern in Composition
The compositional idea I’m talking about is Subordination. It comes from chapter three of Composition by Arthur Wesley Dow. (The link is to a free download of a PDF of the book.)
If you’re serious about improving your composition and design skills and like a practical approach, then in my opinion this book is for you.
It does take a little getting used to before its real value becomes obvious. I don’t mind telling you I struggled with it myself at first and very nearly gave up on it.
But having worked with it enough now to understand where Dow is coming from, I think he has a tremendous amount to teach us about not just composition and design, but how to approach our practice in a more effective way.
This series of posts on composition is my attempt to share some of that with you.
I’ve already talked about opposition and transition, the compositional principles that Dow opens chapter three with, in a previous post. I’ve also written a more general overview of Dow’s book and its approach to teaching composition.
Today I’m taking just one of Dow’s principles, Subordination, and devoting the whole of this post to it. I’m doing that because I think my practice with it has improved my compositions more than anything else.
Subordination? What’s That All About Then?
Good question, I’m glad you asked.
Subordination is an odd term to use about composition. I can’t remember ever hearing it used anywhere else. What does the good Mr. Dow mean?
Let’s start with his own words:
“To form a complete group the parts are attached or related to a single dominating element which determines the character of the whole.”
Okay. But that doesn’t give us much of practical use, does it? He goes on to say:
“[Subordination] governs the distribution of masses in Dark-and-Light composition, and of hues in colour schemes.
It appears in poetry in the subordination of all parts to the main idea of the subject. It is used constructively in musical composition.”
Well that feels a bit more like something we can grab hold of. It’s a central theme or idea running throughout the whole, to which everything else, all other elements in the composition, are subordinated.
Dow’s first example of this is a tree, the branches being thematically related to and joined to the central trunk. The veins on the leaves bear a similar relation to each other as the branches to the trunk.
So subordination is formed by a collection of design elements, thematically related, with one being the dominant, primary focus of the design.
This is best explained with pictures. Here are Dow’s examples from his book.
In each of these examples, the various elements of the design are grouped around a dominant, uniting element. The grouping can be geometric or not. The example of the rooftops at the bottom left is the most useful and the most easily translated into our own work I think.
Some Real World Examples
If this is as useful an idea as I think it is, then we ought to be able to find some examples of it without looking too far.
First, an example from Dow himself, the dominant tree in the foreground being echoed by the remaining trees behind:
My next example is a Monet, with what I think is a gorgeous composition. The main prominent stick thing (what are they called?) being echoed by the others behind it, and subtle subordination in the domes too. The central colour theme is the contrast of the blue and pink, themain relationship to which all other colours are subordinated:
Martin Mooney, he pretty much specialises in subordination:
I found this next lovely example on the ARC site some time ago, but don’t have the artist’s name. Ifanyone knows, please let me know in the comments. Subordination of the various ovals to the main focus of the pecan pie.
Daniel Keys next, a typically beautiful and balanced composition. You can learn a lot about composition by studying his paintings. I think he’s a master of balancing related but varying forms. Although smaller than the squash, I would argue that the cup in the left foreground is the dominant element (and yes, I know – it’s a third of the way up the picture! I’m not saying the rule of thirds is useless, just that it won’t help you make better pictures if you don’t develop your sense of design too).
My final example is a print by Frank Brangwyn, the British illustrator. His compositions are always superb and this is no exception. Look how carefully and beautifully balanced the trees are, around the main foreground tree. To me this composition has the almost perfect beauty of a Bach canon.
But look at that main tree. It divides the picture quite neatly, right down the middle. He’s broken the rule of thirds! He’s committed one of the biggest sins in composition, equal subdivision of the space! But nonetheless he’s produced,in my opinion, a really beautiful picture.
And that, to me, is the whole point. Through much practice, Brangwyn has developed his feeling for balance and design to a point where he can make this work.
It’s not a case of learning the ‘rules’ of composition so that you can break them. People are so fond of parroting this. It annoys me because,quite apart from being lazy thinking, it doesn’t give us anything practical that we can take away and use. It’s useless. And if you ask me, it’s not true either.
What sets all of these compositions apart is that the artists have put in the hard yards to develop their sense of design.They’ve practiced. A lot.
Now I’m not saying that these artists were consciously thinking about subordination when they made these designs.Obviously they weren’t. But at an unconscious level, they undoubtedly were aware of the strong pictorial effect of repeated but varying shapes, with one dominant central focus.
But that’s where this is different from the usual rules you hear about. You could, of course, just stop reading here, with a vague idea of subordination to add to other vague ideas about composition, like the rule of thirds, and hope it somehow just crops up when you’re painting.
For Dow, and for me too, that’s just the jumping off point. What comes next is developing skill with it through regular,focused practice.
Invention alone is not enough
Dow himself is careful to point out that just flinging a bunch of elements together at random won’t create art:
“A work of fine art created upon the principle of Subordination has all its parts related by delicate adjustments and balance of proportions, tone and colour. A change in one member changes the whole.”
The difference between a skilled piece of design based on Subordination and a less successful one is how well the parts relate, how harmonious they are.
So if we want to use Subordination in our pictures, we need to develop our skill with it, through practice. But how?
How to Practise Subordination
The way I went about developing this skill was to take a single element – a clementine in this case, but it could have been anything -and to build compositions around it. This is one of the exercises that Dow recommends in the book.
I started with a few basic drawings, in brush and ink like this:
Then made a couple of studies in oil (more familiar ground for me) to get to know the subject better:
Then I started producing compositions, in line only, with brush and ink. Since I’m not using any value or colour, these designs have to depend on the harmonious division of space for their effect – and subordination of course.
To begin with, the quality of my line was pretty awful as you can see. But it improved slowly.
I tried different formats, and different ways of using the clementine shape to subdivide the space.
Gradually the compositions increased in complexity. I began to notice a change in the designs. They started to look more complete, more balanced.Eventually I found a format that I wanted to concentrate on, tall and thin:
The next stage was then to produce variations on subdividing this format, trying always to have a single, dominant element, supported by the subdominant ones.
I’ve lost count of the number of variations of this I’ve done now. Here’s a few pages from my sketch pad, some examples of pretty typical practice sessions:
This is where the real practice happened. When I’ve worked with composition before, as I often have prior to producing a finished painting, I’ve always missed this stage out. I’ve produced multiple ideas, each one different, but never gone through the much lengthier process of refining a compositional idea.
That was a mistake for two reasons:
- I stopped too soon. Because I never worked on the compositional idea to refine it, it was always still in the idea stage. I’d often be disappointed by the composition of the resulting painting without being sure why.
- I never stretched my design muscle. This is the most important point, and is what differentiates Dow’s approach to composition. It’s based on repeat practice, always refining and attempting to produce the best possible version of a compositional idea.
That approach fits perfectly with the main characteristics of effective practice:
- Repetition. Reworking the same design multiple times strengthens the mental muscles used in design. Perhaps multiple different designs would too, but there’s something about the repeated striving to refine and improve the same basic design that really stretches you.
- Focused and deliberate. By concentrating only on the subdivision of space with line, I’m stretching my design sense only in this area. Later,I’ll move on to value and colour too. But sticking with this one area for now means that I can see progress from one week to the next. That’s very encouraging and inspires me to continue.
That’s how I believe skill is more effectively developed, by taking something in isolation and stretching it further than we’ve stretched it before. Just as physical exercise produces change in our bodies, this kind of practice produces physical change in our brains.
When that happens, we’ve learned something.
Over the past few months of working on these designs, I’ve seen my sense of design harmony develop and strengthen. I’ve also learned what I think is an incredibly powerful design concept which I’ll be building into my work in future wherever I can.
A Practical Exercise
At the beginning of this post I said I was going to have an exercise for you. So here’s your mission, should you choose to accept it.
Take a piece you’ve done before that you weren’t entirely happy with. (For me that’s easy – pretty much everything I’ve done meets that criteria!)
Make it something that has at least some element of repeated or related shapes in it, so that you can use the principle of subordination to make a stronger design than the one you have.
Now reduce it to a line drawing.
What you now have is a basic design that you can start to rework. I’d recommend starting by tracing the drawing without the edges included. Then lay another piece of tracing paper over the top, and draw a new bounding rectangle of the picture on this. You can move the top sheet around over the bottom one, and try out multiple formats for your original design. Play with it, see what works.
That might seem like a simple place to start. But what you’re doing is reducing your picture down to its design fundamental,the subdivision of space, and experimenting with improving it through trying different ways to frame it.
The next stage is to start to re-draw it, trying out different layouts and combinations of the basic elements.
If you hit on an arrangement you like, one that you think is stronger than the original line drawing, don’t stop there.
Concentrate on this new design and re-work it multiple times, looking always to improve the harmony and beauty of the design.
Commit to working on it every day, if you can, for the next two weeks. The regularity is important. It reinforces the changes in your brain that are responsible for your developing skill with design.
If you do this, you’ll start to build and strengthen the mental maps in your brain that handle design. Do it often enough, regularly enough, and your compositions will start to improve – without having to memorise a long list of those pesky composition ‘rules’.
Let’s test this
I’m going to put my money (or at least my practice time) where my mouth is and do this exercise too, and post the results here in a couple of weeks.
The picture I’m starting with is this one:
I’ve never been very happy with it. I never thought I made enough of the rhythmic pattern of the buds on the freesias. And they’re perfect for some practice with subordination.
If you fancy having a go at this, let me know in the comments or drop me an email. I’ll give you as much support as I can through this little project.
I’m committing to practising with the design I’ve chosen every day for the next two weeks, and will report back when I’m done. Look for the next post on this towards the end of April.
Update:
I’ve just finished my first practice session with the exercise, and have completed the first few stages. I’ve reduced the painting to a line drawing, and started trying out different ways to frame the subject.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable exercise and has already got my creative juices running. I think I’ve already come up with a better balance to the picture, a nicer way to crop the subject, and I’ve barely started.
Here’s a quick shot of my drawing board tonight at the end of the first session. I hope this is enough to give you at least some idea of how I’m approaching the exercise.
Thanks for reading,
Paul
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Thanks for this Paul. I think one of the (many) problems when trying to learn to draw or paint is having limited time. This means felling pressured to get SOMETHING completed – to show to family to justify the time you have spent in the ‘studio’ (spare-bedroom) when you could have been doing other “more useful” things, really about me feeling guilty, not because anyone has actually said this to me.
Also there is the need to practice technique, and for a long time this has meant spending what little time I have actually painting – spending a lot of time on composition hasn’t seemed relevant, although I was aware of the lack of composition in my work.
I have almost stopped painting at the moment. I think I’m better with pencil and have been doing some continous tone graphite drawings to help develop tone and form, but because the actual technique for applying graphite is much easier than watercolour, and by having moved towards doing still life studies rather than purely botanical work (where everything DIES! – hence more pressure), I have started to spend more time thinking about compostition. I drew a bottle with some flowers in it a few weeks ago intending to drawing in coloured pencil but put on one side because I wasn’t happy with the composition. I will take this out and try your exercise. I think that the best thing,for me at least, is to be working on one subject while doing the compostitional work for the next -in the evenings or at odd moments when I can’t get on with my current drawing.
Great idea Paul, I think this is going to be good not only for increasing compositional skills, but also to encourage an ability for constructive self criticism and awareness. I start lots of paintings in a hurry to get going ( my excuse is lack of time)and persuade myself as I’m going along that its turning out well, but with a nagging feeling inside that it could be a lot lot better if I had slowed down and really examined my motivation for starting the painting and worked harder on the composition initially. Incidentally I have just read JF Carlson’s book on landscape painting, I think his thoughts on composition are also very useful – he covers some of the same ground as Dow but with a slightly different emphasis and I think it complements the Dow book well. His ideas could equally be applied to other types of painting than landscape.
Thanks for taking the time to do these posts. I think if I had stumbled across the Dow book before reading them I might have been a bit lost when it came to the exercises but seeing how you’ve worked through them has been enlightening.
:-))
Good post, Paul. Funny, I was just wondering about your composition practice yesterday!
In design classes, we often worked the same design over and over. Sometimes we only moved elements a millimeter at a time to see what effect that had on the whole. It was maddening to me at the time, but I learned a lot about placement on the page.
Now that I’m studying landscape painting, I can see that I need to do many studies to figure out the design end of things. Yours is a good challenge; I accept!
Maggie
Your design post came just when I was considering giving up on my art. Lately I’ve been feeling so disappointed with my work and feeling that when I do a good design it’s by accident. Leaving me frustrated and crushing my confidence. Thank you for your generous advice. I will do my part and practice and see what happens.
It’s all about Design (delicious sigh…). I took some students to a talk on design recently, and afterwards one asked me, what IS design. I, helpfully, said…EVERYTHING. I believe that composition/design/layout needs to be introduced right at the beginning of anyones creative journey, then as the drawing/painting skills develop, so does the composition, so its never seen as a thing on its own, but as an intrinsic part of image-making. Design has been hijacked as a word, and in some circles is a Dirty word, even, but the principles of it in compositional circumstances, are about balance and beauty. Well done, delightful to see it coming to the fore, where it should have been all along. Warmest wishes as ever. Julie x
Hi Anne,
Absolutely, time is one of my greatest challenges too. I try to get round it by getting up very early and practising in the peace and quiet of early morning. It doesn’t always work out though, and I’ve been hitting burn out point more than is really healthy lately!
I wonder if perhaps you’re being a little hard on yourself. I wonder that because I have a strong tendency towards that myself, it’s something I have to try and stay conscious of.
Perhaps it might help you to deliberately decide that you’re not going to try and produce anything finished for, say, a month. During that time you’re just going to practice. You can always go back to beating yourself up when the month is up…:-)
That’s wonderful that you’re going to try the exercise. Please feel free to email me your drawings if you want to share the process, and I’ll send you mine in return.
Hi Rosemary, nice to hear from you again.
>also to encourage an ability for constructive self criticism and awareness.
I’m sure you’re right, yes.
You’re not the first person to mention Carlson’s book to me. I couldn’t find it on Amazon though. Do you have the ISBN? From your description it sounds like a book I need to look at.
Are we about to meet up this weekend by the way? Are you the same Rosemary that’s coming to the National on Saturday with David?
Hi Maggie,
Wow. A millimetre. That’s fascinating. I can imagine that practice being a bit maddening if it’s forced on you! But placement is a nice way to put it, a good word to use. My sense of placement is developing and improving too, I think.
>Yours is a good challenge; I accept!
Fantastic! please feel free to get in touch with me over email as we work through it. We can share pictures too if you’d like to.
Hi Darlene, thanks for being so brave and leaving such a personal thought.
If I can help you, I will. Please get in touch via email and we can work through the exercise together. I know what it’s like to have your confidence knocked. Actually, I think a lot of us do but not many of us are open enough to talk about it willingly. Don’t give up. Drop me a line.
Hi Julie, great to hear from you again.
I had a feeling you might like this one, your smiley comment said it all!
> I believe that composition/design/layout needs to be introduced right at the beginning of anyone’s creative journey
I couldn’t agree more. This has been one of the revelations for me of working with design and composition in this way. I can hardly believe that I never realised how important it is before – and how enjoyable it is to work with!
I really believe now that the core of our creativity can be found and developed through practice with design.
>balance and beauty
Two of my favourite words 🙂
So, where are your homework results? 🙂
This article is great. Several years back I was in a workshop in Florida & the teacher said we could bring in paintings for critique. She was approving of them & very complimentary but confused over one painting in which part of it was directly in the middle both horizontally & vertically…format was tall. She said even though I had done that it was working well & she would go back & keep looking at it after the critique. I instinctively did it before I learned the rules of composition but knew it worked when I did it. I’ve always had a good sense of design & so get this article very well.
hi Paul,
yes I’m really hoping to make it this Saturday, trips into London can be a bit of a challenge these days but I’ve managed it a few times so far so I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
There are two ISBNs on my copy, the publisher is Dover
ISBN-13:978-0-486-22927-0
ISBN-10:0-486-22927-0
Rosemary
I have been reading Dow’s book on composition, very slowly, as there is much to be learned from this book. I will be doing the exercise you recommend. Certainly worth a try.
Hi Simon, I’ll be posting them at the end of the two weeks, or shortly thereafter.
If you want to see them as I go along, you have to do the exercise along with me and we can trade pictures over email 🙂
Hi Nettie, thanks for sharing that story with us. Pretty funny!
It goes to show though that the rules of composition don’t really count for much I think. Actually, I doubt you could ever get two artists together to agree on a final list!
>I’ve always had a good sense of design
Is it something you spent much time with when you were young? In your childhood I mean?
Hi Rosemary, brilliant that we’re going to be meeting on Saturday! I’m really looking forward to meeting you.
I love your work too. I’m pretty sure you had a lighter painting in the same Discerning Eye that I had a couple of pieces in?
Thanks very much for the ISBN, that’s really helpful. It turns out they do have it on Amazon, I just ordered a copy.
Hi Margaret,
That’s great. If you fancy it, drop me a line at the email address at the bottom of the page and we can share our experiences with it.
Great Post and Love the new website!
Thanks Helen 🙂
Another wonderful, thoughtful post, Paul, thank you! I need to do more composition practice and this post will help me. Your examples of the clementine in particular is very useful to me.
By the way, my lazy artist’s way to help myself when I’m in a jam is to change the format, from vertical to horizontal, for example, to see if that clears things up for me.
Please keep this up!
Hi Linda, great to hear form you again. It’s been too long since we chatted.
Nice idea about changing the format – instantly see the composition in a new way. I’ll have to try that.
Hi Paul, Thank you for your supporting words. I have been trying Dow’s exercises for a few days now and the past couple of mornings I’ve awoken with design on my mind as though I’ve been dreaming about it.
I wonder if this means that it’s incorporating itself into my unconscious.
I also find I’m looking at my old paintings with a new eye. I’m begin gin to see what’s wrong with them.
Well, it’;s a start.
I also enjoy doing Dows exercises as a sort of meditation. They are relaxing to do.
Hi Darlene,
That’s great news,I’m really glad to hear you’re enjoying it.
I think of it almost as a kind of meditation too. And I agree, it does get into your unconscious.
>I also find I’m looking at my old paintings with a new eye.
I’ve had exactly that experience. I also find that I look at other paintings that I know well with a new eye too. I seem to see the design behind them more easily.
Please feel free to get in touch on email if you want to chat about the Dow exercises.
This is amazingly reminiscent of this lesson from Myron Barnstone. http://barnstonestudios.com/blog/2010/04/02/what-is-art-video-lesson/ Love this website, cheers!
Hi Guy,
Thanks for the link. From 7 minutes or so on, Myron’s description of Ellsworth Kelly’s apples is very closely related to what I’m talking about here.
I think he stretches the point on some of his overlays, but I’ve no doubt that most of it is relevant.
Whether Ellsworth Kelly was conscious of doing it is another thing entirely. But to an extent, I think that’s beside the point. There are patterns embedded in that simple little apple drawing, and that’s largely what gives it its charm.
Lovely example, thank you.
Painting a composition is the wrong approach I think. All those orange compositions are inferior to the original single orange in the middle of the frame, which isn’t to say the original is great shakes, but it is honest and gets to the point. The other ones are exercises in abstraction, which is probably wrong.
I believe composition should serve the intent of the painter and if you have nothing to say, it will show in the compositions, no matter how you compose.
Find what you want to say with the motif(s) and the composition will follow. I would also suggest to stop trying to invent compositions as you are doing and instead use ones that work, which others have done in the past. This is what all successful artists do…. just look at the typical portrait formats done by titian, rubens, valazquez,,, they are all the same sort of composition. You don’t need to create original compositions for all your work, use the ones that are proven to work and recycle them with your own twist.
Thanks for your comment Simon, but with respect I think you’re missing the point of the exercise described here.
None of these drawings are meant to be finished pieces. The point is not to create new compositions. Think of them more as a musician practising scales. The idea is that through repetition and practice, a natural sense of design will develop and become strengthened.
The point is simply to stretch a muscle. These are not exercises in abstraction, they’re exercises in design. Design press-ups, if you like. I believe that the best way to stretch a specific skill is to practice it in isolation.
You’ll also find exercises designed to stretch skill with drawing accuracy and value handling on this site. These are not about what I have to say as an artist, they are about developing competence with specific skills, skills which are part of the overall complex skill of making pictures.
I find it curious that musicians will habitually spend untold hours honing their skill and practising scales, phrasing, fingering, breathing, intonation – basic skills that make up their craft. This kind of practice seems to be anathema to visual artists. I think that’s a shame – and a mistake.
Paul,
You’ve written an excellent explanation to Dow’s subordination concept. I was very confused when I read this section in his book so I went online to find more info. I know this book isn’t very well know but I am very grateful that you’ve taken the time to write this explanation and provided exercises too. So thank you! And keep up the good work!
Benlin
Hi, that wood block print of the pine trees deserves the mention of Yoshijiro Urushibara who printed it but probably also designed it. He did collaborate with Bragwyn a lot. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2017/feb/14/frank-brangwyn-yoshijiro-urushibara
I’m having a lot of fun with compositions thanks to your series. I come from a sumi-e background and will one day return to it. It truely is a delight to read and sketch along.