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Composing and Drawing Tip of the Week.
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Greetings!
Eye guides are strategically placed spots of interest that create visual paths. There are many and they can be used in an array of creative ways. Often they act as elements of intrigue.
Try this.
- On a blank, white sheet of printer paper, draw three 2" x 3" rectangles.
- In the first rectangle, about two-thirds down from the top, make a horizontal row of three darkened circles, unevenly spaced.
- In the second rectangle, using another set of darkened circles, place one close to one side, another near the top and the third, towards the bottom of the rectangle.
- In the third rectangle, arrange six in a circle.
- Now look at each rectangle, one at a time, and notice how your eye is guided according to how the dark circles are placed.
The content here is the dark circle. The contrast of dark against light attracts the eye to the circle causing it to guide the eye. The repetition causes visual movement and the arrangement creates the visual path. In this exercise, you have used the same content and the same eye guide to create three different visual paths: a horizontal, a triangle and a circle.
In my painting of an old river stump, the subject matter is the stump, but the content is more: it's about how the late afternoon light is dancing around the stump, creating a circular visual path. That visual path is made by repetitions of light that lead the eye around the stump, keeping the interest within the painting.
Look what happens when I take away the light path. Not only is there's not much left to guide the eye, the intrigue is gone.
No matter how beautifully you paint a subject, without a visual path of some kind, the viewer's eye is likely to get stuck and quickly lose interest in the painting.
Happy painting,
Dianne
P.S. Almost any kind of repetition can create a visual path as long as the eye guides are in contrast.
P.P.S. Do you have a painting in which you have used repetition to create a visual path? If so, why not share it with us on our Facebook forum.
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