Sometimes the littlest things can make a difference.
Armatures. In this painting I designed this interlocking set of diagonals to be my “support structure” in this image. So as I mentioned last week, the intersects of the diagonals create my “harmonics” or my “sweet spots” in the painting that make for good placement in the composition. Why? Well, math gets involved.
It turns out that Pythagorean guy figured out more than math equations. He also discovered the musical scale and that math- thirds and fourths and fifths, etc… create harmonies in music. Many songs and especially orchestra music rely on musical harmonies based on what I call “good math.” And guess what? it works on the 2-dimensional picture plane as well.
Now I am not good with math (I don’t think I have balanced a checkbook since the 90’s…) but the beauty of this compositional system is that you don’t have to be. I know I can run some diagonals, place something important on the intersects and bam! Good math. And better compositions.
Here are the armatures I am using for this painting.
So at this point I am juggling a lot of plates on sticks. Thinking about color, thinking about form (his chest is still off) painting his eye, ( still working on that) and thinking about how to get these armatures to work. One of the things I got obsessed with was the little blade of grass in the bottom right corner. I literally was falling asleep one night trying to figure out how to polish this area off and it came to me.. a weed! Along the diagonal to help focus up to the eye and his gaze. So I added this singular blade of grass gone to seed. But then I doubted myself- should there be more? Should it be the only lit thing in this corner and the rest of the background in the shadow? Is it too much? Not enough? All while trying to adjust the background and rocks and make it feel “airier” around him. Because the next step is to paint him from life, which I started doing. More on that next week.
P.S. After all that planning and stressing out over adding the weed, I wound up painting over it…. lol…..but I think it will make a reappearance, but slightly different. Who knows? It’s an adventure…,
check placement of weed … weed was smack in the middle of force lines GREEN
at times two work better than one (weed ) ?
but YOU are the designer … not me
Yeah. Maybe thats it. It kept bugging me so I finally just took it out. You are the king of design so I welcome any thoughts you can fling my way. 🙂
Loved this one. But, that’s not a surprise. I love them all. I too have had a problem with a very blank corner. I solved it with a different flower than the main subject. I kept fading it out until I was satisfied. I didn’t want it to be to much of a star, just enough to guide the eye. (I learned that from you. Thanks!)
Behind your single weed, against the stone, it looks as if there could be some grasses there in the shadows. Perhaps a few blades of that brought into the light could help lessen the emptiness of the blank corner… positioned a bit differently to avoid the lines, and also pointing upward and turn in the direction of the subject’s gaze?? Just my nickel’s worth! Love this painting and this use of the pythagorean technique for composing! THANKS!!
Thanks for the nickel! Sounds good.