A visual path is a strategy the artist uses to insure the viewer enter the painting and move within it rather than being thrown out unexpectedly or carried into oblivion.
In this hashed version of my painting, Light Games, the viewer enters at the bottom and is thrown out at the top without any enticement to explore images on the left or right.
Notice the difference in your invitation to explore when the images on the left reach over and wrap an arch around the images on the right.
Light Games 16 x 20 Oil on Canvas
Tip: We can invite the viewer to explore our compositions by configuring our images so that they lead the eye within a pattern. This painting uses the C pattern, the painting's visual path. (See pages 101-104 of Finding Freedom to Create.)
Happy painting,
Dianne
P. S. Join us on the Facebook forum where a new challenge appears each Wednesday. Next week's challenge will be about finding ways to create a C pattern visual path.
One note: Although it is fun for all of us to see how various artists solve a challenge, I hope you will feel free to play with this challenges even though you might not feel comfortable posting your results. Their purpose, after all, to aid problem solving of visual ideas.
