Art Composition Fundamentals: Shape, Flow and Feeling in Your Illustrations

1. Introduction: For the longest time, composition, to me, seemed almost like a mysterious black box, no entrances and no clear way to see what's inside. For sure, there was always the rule of thirds, which a lot of us have heard of, but I always felt like there was maybe more that I was somehow not understanding, lacking or just didn't know about. Turns out I was right, and there is so much more to composition than the rule of thirds. Today, in this class, we're going to look at some of the many aspects feed into composition and that helps us create art compositions that feel impactful and convey the kinds of emotions and messages that we want to communicate. Hi, my name is Marinel Worm. I'm an artist, illustrator, also a top teacher on Skillshare, where I've taught more than 90,000 students to tap into your creativity in ways that feel more free, more fun, and more fulfilling, but also while building skill sets that empower you in your art. That's what this class is about today. We're going to be looking into art composition. Whether you've taken my other art composition fundamentals in class or you're starting out with this one, they both build on each other. They're complementary in whichever order that you like so that you can really understand what it is that underpins compositional principles in powerful artwork. Going to look beyond the rule of thirds to really understand the importance of shapes, how they connect to value, flow, which is a path that your eye takes within a painting, and the most important thing in my books feeling. Because yes, feeling is something that we think of maybe last, but if you start with it first, I think you'll notice a huge shift in the kinds of artworks that you create. Feeling is, to me, at the root of the most powerful and impactful artwork. So we're going to look at all of those aspects in a few different ways, looking at past and current masters, artists, and illustrators who have created beautiful illustrations and who use these principles in a very purposeful way. We're going to break down what they're doing. And then we're going to get out some scissors, some paper, and do some cutouts, playful exercises where we're going to create our own compositions. We're also going to brainstorm a personal piece, work on thumbnails that bring together all the things that we've learned to launch us off on this journey of creating the kind of artwork you want to make. This is really more of an exploration and a journey into learning these principles so that you have these tools in your backpack the next time that you want to create your piece of art. And the good thing is, we're starting off on that piece of art in this class. So I hope you join. Quick note, this is a slightly different format than I usually do because it's actually taken from my cozy little art cafe on Patrion where I do live classes every month, and this is one of those classes. But I hope that you'll enjoy it just the same, and I can't wait to see what you make. 2. Class Structure + Materials: So, hello. Today, we're embarking on an exploration into composition. As you know, composition is a subject that I love that is vast. And we're going to look at it through a few different lenses today. Of course, you can't learn everything that there is to know about composition within one single session, but we're going to try to get a few of these principles that can be really helpful when you're trying to create your own pieces. We're also going to look at some artists and illustrators and see kind of what it is that they're doing, the principles that they're following, and what we can learn and take away from what past or present people have already done. And then we're going to do some playing with I have a few, like, creative composition exercises for us. But I will say that in the beginning, I have a presentation, again, where we're going to be looking at illustrators and other artists. What I would suggest is that in the interim or while I'm doing that presentation, of course, you're welcome to look at the images, listen to what I'm saying. But you can still already grab some art materials and just start playing. Today, what we're going to do in terms of the exercises is more going to be black and white, so, you know, like graphite or color pencils or markers. So if you want to have some color, this would be the time. Enjoy the color mixing, that kind of stuff so that we can then embark on really the composition explorations that we're going to are going to do maybe a little bit of color in one of the exercises, but we'll see. So yeah, so you can bring out your sketchbook. Oh, and by the way, it would be good if you had either a piece that you've done in the past and that you're not very happy with or an idea of something that you'd like to create. And maybe you have a thumbnail or two or maybe you even have just one little snippet in your sketchbook that you're like, Oh, that's a fun little character or that's a fun little tree. I'd like to build something with that. So for the exercises that we're going to do, it would be good to have that. If you don't have any of that and you're like, Oh, I have no idea, then you can also take this time during the presentation to kind of just think of something you might want to explore in a drawing. And I would actually recommend if you don't have an idea to go with something simple, you know, it can be something as simple as, like, Oh, well, I'd love to draw a beautiful tree or I'd love to have one character drinking a cup of coffee. I don't know. You know, something really, really simple. The materials that you're going to need for this class are pretty straightforward. All you'll need is some scissors. A few markers, one that's black, one that's mid gray. You could also use paint. That's a totally feasible option as well. Paper so that you can cut out shapes on, and then maybe a sketchbook, as well as a graphite pencil. And if you want, you could also have a few colors as I do invite you to add a little bit of color right at the end. So that could be colored pencils, markers, whatever you have on hand. There's really no obligation here. Other than that, I hope you bring your curiosity cap your backpack with everything that you've learned up until now and a spirit of adventure to embark on this composition journey together. 3. What Is Composition?: So I called this exploration sorry, exploring composition, shape, flow, and feeling. But of course, there's a bunch of other things that can go into composition. And so I guess what I wanted to say is if you ask people what the definition of composition is, most simply or the most common answer is it has to do with the arrangement of elements on the page, right? It's like, how the image is built. But actually, the more you look into composition, and the more you realize that it's not just about the arrangement. And actually, it's about choices, whether those choices are intentional or unintentional. So everything that you put into a drawing participates in the composition. The choice of subject, of course, the shapes, the lines, the colors, the line quality, the textures, all of those are really kind of the structure that brings forth the drawing. And so the thing with that notion of composition being a little bit bigger than just the arrangement of shapes on a page or elements on a page, it means that it can sound very overwhelming because each single choice that you make is going to kind of influence the composition. But I rather see it more as opening a door into a vast landscape, something that allows you to kind of discover something every time that you visit the subject of composition. That's how I like to see it. I wanted to share with you just this illustration of mine, which I'm sure you've seen before because it's one of my favorites of a greenhouse that I made, and I did it all with the brush pen. What I want you to notice what can you tell about the composition? If you look at it, it's actually very simple. I have one huge black swath. I have one sort of band in the middle that has a lot of texture. Yes, there are plants, and yes, there's a greenhouse, and you can see that there's a difference between those two things. But if you kind of squint, they all have a similar value. Do you see that? And then you have the white space at the bottom. So this is really a very, very simple composition that is basically three values. And what I want you to understand is that powerful compositions use simplicity. That is really the core principle that underpins good, powerful compositions. Not to say that there aren't other ways that you can do that, but I will say that often we try to too complicated, and that's why we get lost. We look at our drawing. We're like, I don't really know why it's not working, but there's something that's not working. It's because we've maybe not simplified it to its essence. What is your drawing about? So, like I said, composition carries absolutely all the choices that you make. We did actually do, like, a pretty in length composition session, but I think it was like maybe two years ago. And I was thinking that it could be fun to revisit it again more like recently with absolutely every single principle that I've heard of, at least, even though there are many others. But I'll just give you a few little elements or little words that might kind of ignite things that you've heard before or things that you might want to explore. I'm not going to say them all, but I said it earlier, shapes, color. Of course is also a compositional tool. Line quality, rhythm, framing, edges, contrast. And then, et cetera, et cetera. I'm not going to name them all. Those are the ones that I just wanted to evoke today. Contrast is actually the one that I think at least the way that I've integrated everything that I've learned about composition. It's the one that's kind of the most important in my books, and contrast is something that can be used in many, many different ways. So I was thinking, also, we could do a whole session just on contrast. That could be fun. 4. The Power of Simplicity & Flow: So simplicity carries power. That's what I was trying to show you with that illustration that I made. It's still a dear favorite, and I think it has a powerful composition because of its simplicity. But we're gonna look at other examples of people who have used simplicity as a core tool of their paintings or illustrations. So Felix Valeton, one of my favorite masters from the past, and he has a lot of different types of paintings. I mostly love his landscapes, but he does have obviously some paintings of people. And this one, I thought was a particularly perfect image to show how powerful simplicity can be. Look at the structure of that painting. It's literally just one big black block and then one light block with a dark line that kind of separates the two. If you squint at it, you don't really see the face of the person on the right. You can kind of see a little bit of lightness that's coming out where it's the face the half face of the guy, and you kind of see that hat a tiny bit. But if you zoomed out even more, it probably would look just like one big black block. And then you have that light band and then the dark band underneath. Very simple. But it's very powerful. And I don't know, for me, you can tell me what you think, but I sense, like, a lot of for me, it's a very lonely painting. I'm imagining that it's in some sort of context of, like, a concert or something like that, where, you know, people are like, W you know, in their boxes, looking at the classical composer, whatever. And there are two characters, but they're not very connected. And the simplicity and the starkness of the composition kind of participates in this sense of loneliness, because there's a lot of spaciousness in that dark section and in the light section. Okay, let's look at the one underneath. James McNeil Whistler classic painting. I absolutely love this one. I don't know if you know it, but it's one of my favorites, and it looks way more complicated, if you look at it on the surface level. It also looks way more abstract. It's actually not entirely abstract because I should have written down the title of it, but it's something like lights on a ship or a bridge or something like that. And if you actually look closely, you can see a character at the bottom there. But for me, there's really this element in Whistler, where he really loves just abstraction and mood and feeling. So let's look at that one a little bit more precisely. One of the things with composition is values. That's a very, very important part of composition, and values are, you know, the lightness or the darkness of a color. So if you strip this painting of all its color, this is what it looks like. And you can see that again, yes, it's got a little bit more complexity. There's a lot of texture, and there's some, you know, value transitions. But if you squint at it, it's actually really simple. Again, it's one big dark swath then there's a white line and then another white line that goes up and then it curls, and then there's maybe another white line up at the top. Do you see what I mean? So it's really the abstraction, the abstract shapes that are underneath paintings that have to do with the value structure are what make it really powerful and interesting to look at. You have this path so do you see how in Whistler's painting, there's really this sense of flow. And when I just used the word flow because I was meaning it as your eye flows within the painting. And I think this is a really perfect illustration of that. You really have, you know, within this dark mass, you have a lightness that you follow, and then it kind of curls over and then it goes back down again. So composition is also about that path that your eye takes. But again, let's get back to some simplicity. I want to remind you that color is not the be all and end all of all things, even though we all love color. I spent three years doing only black and white work with the brush pen, and that's why I think I was able to, in the end, create this piece because I spent so much time just working with two values black and white, and then the textures that can create these in between grays. So one of the practices that you can really do to increase your compositional skills is to allow yourself to explore black and white work. To create finished pieces in black and white. This is an example of one of those pieces in black and white. Very simple. Again, do you see the structure of it? Do you see how it's again, just I mean, it's slightly different than the ones that we were looking at, but you really almost only have two values in this one. You have a third, of course, you can have a your eye kind of still travels within the space in a really interesting way because the outline of the house isn't completed. Do you see that? But your eye goes from the side of the house to the characters. And then maybe it looks at the texture because all the grasses are pointing in one direction that point you towards that texture. And then back at the roof and at that little window. The window is really the first thing that I looked at, and then the second thing that I look at is the characters. And because of the way that the big shapes are placed here, there's something very ominous. Most of this piece is dark, but then not only that, it's also very textural in that darkness. So there's something in that that also conveys look at the white space, how it really, if we just took it as two values, you would have basically that dark band at the top. You would have the white of the house that continues, and then you would have the bottom hill. But do you see how that white space, it actually goes from big to the left to small on the right. There's a what's the word? A compression, like a thinning out of that path. And if you actually bring in the texture, really the only space that has light is in that left part where it merges with the house and the window. And then the rest is more of a mid tone. It's almost like your path is closed towards the right. And in the western world, we read from left to so even simple things like that of, like, Oh, space got closed off on the right can have a significance and a symbolism that you feel when you look at it. There's an entrapment that's happening in this image, and it's very striking with the characters and the alignment with that window. And it's just this house and these characters. Let me know if you're seeing this or if you're struggling to see it or if there's any other things that you saw that I didn't don't hesitate to chime in. 5. Structure, Framing & Grouping Values: So this is a piece of mine that I also wanted to show you to, I guess, really drive home the fact that black and white work can be finished pieces in and of itself and that you learn a lot in terms of composition when you do that. This is actually a watercolor piece that I made a while ago. It's actually still a dear favorite of mine. I was really obsessed with clouds and storms at the time. I was doing a lot of work around that. And so that's what I wanted to do. I wanted most of my painting to be about the storm and to have a house there also kind of ominously connected to the storm. Again, though, if you look at the structure, it's very simple, right? It's much easier to look at it when you're looking at something that's already in black and white. You can see that simplicity in the structure. And that's kind of what we try to aim for even when we're doing color work. So also gaining an added awareness of the values of our colors is going to contribute to being able to create the kind of compositions that we want. Speaking of color, here's one that actually and I didn't notice this right at the beginning. It's after as I was doing my presentation, I was like, It's funny. There's actually a lot of similarities in terms of the structure to my piece. So do you see how my piece, there's a lot of this ominous space with the storm. It really takes out up everything. You also have the scary sort of haunted house kind of thing. But you have the opening on the white side, on the right side with the light. And then it connects back up to the cloud and then back to the house. So you kind of really have this sort of triangular almost structure. More circular because all the shapes are more circular and organic. This piece by Mary Blair also has something a little bit similar where you have this big swath of darkness and it ends up being lighter on the right side. And in this piece by Mary Blair, what I love about it is, I mean, not only the color palette, Mary Blair is she's an illustrator from the 1950s. She was very well known. She worked for Disney, incredible work. And it's clearly a journey. There's a journey theme here. And so thus that opening on the right really kind of builds into that message. And yet there's something still very ominous because of the darkness of the tree and kind of the entrapment of the character within that tree. So in some sense, it's like it's not just an entrapment. It's also a framing device. And that's what I also want you to think about when you think about composition is framing is very important or can be used in ways that will serve the message that you're trying to convey. Here, everything helps you focus in on that blue character. Do you see the value structure of the tree? Yes, there's a different color in the leaves than in the trunk and also in the plants that are in the front. But do you see that they're all the same value? If you squint, it would look like just one big black sa. Obviously, there's a little bit of variation. That's the thing that's tricky about explaining this is when you're trying to get a sense of what the simplicity is, there's something called grouping values. And what that means is you take values that are next to each other and you compress them, and you establish that those are one value, even if in reality, it's not exactly one value. And especially if you're looking at, like, you know, paintings from the masters, where there's, like, constant value shifts. But if you look at the value groups, you'll always notice that there's a very, very simple structure behind it. And that's why you know, I don't know if some of you have taken my Skillshare class about composition, but it's one of the reasons that my first Skillshare class on composition, I decided to focus it on the notion of no ten, which is the balance of lights and darks. So black and white two value studies. That is how you kind of learn to compress values, and it's how you learn to read images that will in a way that will help you because you'll be able to understand what's going on compositionally it'll help you look at your own images and read what's going on compositionally, so that you are no longer looking at a piece and like, Oh, it's not working, but I'm not sure why. But so you look at it and you're like, Oh, yeah, of course, it's not working. My value structure is way too complicated in this section. It's pulling me away from the focal point. What is my focal point? What is it that I want to call attention to in my image? So it's by learning to read images that we can also better build images. And so that's kind of also why I wanted to have us look at some of these things today. 6. Interesting Abstract Shapes: So one of the things that you'll notice is that a lot of the images that I've shown you, not all of them, I mean, with some variation, of course, are high contrast. So there's a big difference between the lightest lights and the darkest darks, right? This one is a perfect example. This one, not so much. It's a little bit, but that first one by Felix auto also very, very high contrast. Mine is pretty high contrast. Mary Blair, definitely high contrast. So if I had to simplify these with just, you know, two values, it would be one very dark value and one very light value. And I will say that's a very simple trick. Very simple. Super simple. That you can use in any of your drawings. If you use one very dark and one very light, then it's going to already have a stronger impact just because you're automatically creating contrast through that value. That being said, low contrast paintings can still carry the same principles that I explained earlier. And the low contrast paintings bring in a different flavor, a different feeling. So, this one is still, I would say, on the higher contrast range, but we're edging towards slightly lower contrast. It was too beautiful not to share with you. I love this illustration by Monica Berngo, amazing Illustrator. Look at the abstract shapes that you're seeing. Squint at the image. Actually, you know what? I'm going to do something just very quickly so that you can kind of see what I'm talking about. See how tiny that is? Okay, I'm going to go through these again. So you can see Looking I actually use Procreate like this at a lot of times when I use digitally, I'll take my own drawing that I'm making and I'll make it tiny. So I can see what that structure is. Do you see how with the Whistler painting, how you immediately see that path that I was talking about, now that it's much smaller, the house. You see it very simply. Even this one, mine, Mary Blair's. There's a very, very clear thing that's going on. Look at this illust if you look at it very small and if I hadn't even showed you what it was, would you know what it was about? You'd have no idea what it's about. But somehow it's interesting because the shapes are interesting. The value structure is interesting. There's an abstract shape that's roundish, but it goes diagonal and kind of curves, and then it gets smaller, and then the rest is all pale. So it's really cool. I mean, if you have Procreate, I think it's a great exercise to do this with any painting that you like or any painting that you've made. But then, of course, when you look at it more closely, you're like, Oh, oh, it's a lady who's sitting on a chair and she has two cats or sorry, three cats, and they're kind of all She's like a cat lady. And you can see that the dark shape that we had no idea what it was, and it just, like, kind of squiggled not only is it not just the dress, it's the dress and the cat. And that's okay, the fact that it is both things because the structure of it, the abstract value structure is interesting. So squinting, and the thing is when you start squinting, I think in the beginning, it's kind of we're so used to with our brains to latch onto details and to try to read what's going on, right? That's just what our brains automatically do. So when we want to better understand art and our own art and other people's art, it's like we need to train our brain to not see the details, to not try to read what's happening, and to look past that into what is that abstract structure underneath. And so when you squint, I remember in the beginning when I started squinting, I was like, Well, I don't know. I'm not sure what I'm What I'm looking at or what I'm seeing. Now when I squint, I'm really able to say, there's this shape over here, there's that shape over there, and it's a very useful tool when I want to work on my own. 7. Simple Values + Leading Lines: Okay, this is a piece, however, with much lower contrasts than the ones that we looked at previously. This is by Mark English. He was an illustrator from the 60s and 70s. Beautiful work, very, very powerful stuff. And the values are much closer here, right? There's nothing that's really, like, ultra bright white or ultra ultra dark. You can really get a sense of that if, let's say, you take it on Procreate and then you try to put a super bright thing, like a bright white or dark color somewhere. That's when you really see like, Oh, yeah, okay, this is really low contrast. But the thing is also, our eyes get used to whatever the contrast is within an image or within an environment. So even if the painting itself has low contrast, we read in a similar way that we did the high contrast ones. We see the differences because that's what our eyes are meant to do. They see the differences between the light and the dark. And so it'll seem higher contrast than it is. I hope that kind of makes sense. So what I did instead is I just put it in black and white so that you could kind of see how low of a contrast image it is. It's almost and you know what? Why don't we do this? You can look at it in tiny and you can get a sense of how low contrast that is. But do you see that there's still a very, very simple underlying structure. There's a dark band on the left, there's a dark band on the right. There's some sort of texture like slightly darker at the bottom, and then there's a lighter.in the kind of middle top. Do you see that? So even when you're looking at low contrast paintings, if they are done well, it's because they have maintained very simple value structures and an interesting path for your eye to follow. Look at the little boy with the stripes because that's a big contrast from everything else that has kind of these smooth shapes. And I also look at the teacup that she's holding, and then the white shirt of the boy that's behind the boy with the stripes. And then my eye kind of goes back down to the stripes and then back up to the teacups, you? So you see there's this very simple path that your eyes following. But there's also even, and I didn't mention it, but there's that light spot at the top right, and that kind of gives us a little bit of breathing room. So kind you do at some point kind of look at that and you're like, Oh, did I go back down. Go back up, go back down. And that's kind of what I think constitutes really the strength of good artwork is it invites the viewer to spend time within the image. There's nothing that forces your eye outside of the image, whether intentionally or unintentionally, usually unintentionally. It's really like, Oh, there's this thing to notice, and there's this thing to notice, and there's this thing to notice. But all brought together with that super simple underlying abstract value structure. Here's one more low contrast painting from one of my favorite living artists who I also met and who's a friend of mine. Now, her name is Andrea Kolova. Incredible artist, if you haven't seen her work. Just such beautiful sensitivity and mastery of color and light. It's such a sensitive, beautiful image, and it's got a very pretty low contrast underlying structure, if we look at it in black and white. But again, do you see the simplicity in the statement? It's almost only two values here. 11 mid. I wouldn't even say really that there's three. It's really more like two. There's a big shape in the bottom half, there's those interesting shapes of the fence and the birds all connected, all that same value, and then the mid, which is the sky, but also the spaciousness brought in at the bottom in the grass. Again, you just have these very interesting paths that you can follow. You can even see that within that big space of dark, bottom, there's some lighter elements in the middle. Do you see how they're kind of that stick? So there's the fence and then there's a stick sticking out. And that stick kind of points to that section with all the texture. Do you see that something called leading lines? And that's another principle of composition that we haven't gotten into deeply, but we could. You could spend a whole session just on leading lines. Most well composed images have these lines that lead your eye in the ways that the artist wants you to in the ways that serve the message of the painting. Oh, sorry, I didn't see your message. The small areas areas of light of the cups and clothing are very interesting to me. Yeah, you're talking about this one, right? Yeah. I think it's absolutely stunning. Like, the cups really just draw you in. It's funny, isn't it? And the lady holding the cups, she almost disappears completely into the background. It's a fascinating image. R one of my favorites. So, yeah, I hope you get a sense of how you can look at images in a way that helps you see compositional principles that are working. 8. Feeling as a North Star: Here's another little thing. So again, I keep talking about the abstract value structure, and it's one of the reasons that I love abstraction, like even just drawing and painting abstraction. Abstraction teaches you about shapes and about interesting shapes and about the path that your eye takes within the image. So you can do the same sort of exercise with abstract work or with your own abstract and I know that I have learned so much in doing abstraction. I did abstraction for many, many years, especially at the beginning. Then most of my work is semi abstract. And then now I do a mix of figurative, illustrative. But abstraction is always a part of my art practice because it's just it's ah, Yeah. It comes back to these beauty of shapes and how your eye can be intrigued by shapes and textures and the sizes and scales and the textures. So this artist, Miseto Suzuki, love her work, especially the one on the bottom is one of my favorites. And you can already just see how she's building contrasts between these sort of very distinct flat shapes of different colors and then all the, like, intricate textures that are happening at the bottom. But if you squint again, let's make it small. Let's make that one small. Let's look at the value structure. Actually pretty light all over with one black section at the bottom left, one black section kind of in the middle right, and then one little black line. And so you have this kind of triangular thing that's happening. And most compositions that really work have very simple shapes in terms of the path of eye the path that your eye takes. Speaking of shapes, Shapes, inform, feeling. This one's a really, really important one. The way that I like to start any image or compose any image, and I think it's such an automatic thing for me that for a long time, I didn't realize that that was, like, a thing that I was doing is that I think of feeling first. To me, it's less about what it is that I'm drawing. And of course it is. Of course it is, you know, there are things I love to draw and things I don't love as much. But if you have a feeling that you want to convey, it really gives you a Northstar for your entire piece. So there are a lot of ways that the different visual elements in your image can inform feeling or can be represent or can represent feelings. Shapes is one of them. There's a great book by Mali Bing called How Shapes Work, I think. That's what it's called, where you start to get a sense of how powerful this is. But what I'll do is I'm just going to share two images. Some of you might have seen these before that I think really show how powerful shapes can be. So the top one by Arnel Woker and at the bottom one by Rio Takamasa both beautiful illustrations, very simple. And I also wanted to in the presentation show you that even with very simple shapes, you can create very powerful drawings and powerful compositions. So both of these have a very strong shape language in each of how would you characterize the first one, the top one by Arnel Wilker? How would you describe the feeling or adjectives or I don't know, whatever? For me, there's a sense of calm in that image in the top image. Languid has also that same connotation. There's something very stable and something very cozy about it. There's also something more akin to something daunting, but it's funny because all the other things, the coziness, the languidness kind of balances that out and brings that down. And then it invites more into that, like, Oh, wow, there's a big world to explore. There's something really adventurous but cozy about it. So, I want to break it down a little bit later, but first I want to talk about now the image on the bottom. How would you describe that one? What are the words that come to mind? Intense? Yes, absolutely. Vastness, so awesome. I love everything that you've said, and I agree with all the descriptors that you've given. I would add another one. I would also add scary. For me, there's something a little bit scary about it. Dangerous. Yeah, there's something dangerous about it. And why is that? Where does that sense of danger come from? The pointy lines. These images, I think, really just show so beautifully how shape works with our psychology. Pointy lines, whether they're trees or tree shadows or anything else, we automatically have a sense of danger, and a lot of pointy lines increases that danger. But the funny thing is, is, like you said, there's also a sense of spaciousness in this image of endlessness. There's also this weird sort of tension of between those two things that seem paradoxical, right? And both the images that we looked at have a sense of adventure, but they have a very different feeling. And the one on top on the top left, the coziness is brought in by all the roundness of the shapes. Edge of the water. Everything is all round and smooth. Some of the trees are round. Yes, there are some pointy trees, but the value of those trees are actually the same value as the water. So that shape isn't as striking. There's only the one on left that kind of pops out and that maybe gives that little added sense of Oh, wow, big world, which we were also talking about in that one. Both of these images feel detached to me. Yeah, very interesting. I agree with you, and I think that has a lot to do this is just my theory, and you can tell me what your theory is as to why that is. For me, there are two elements that are participating to that sort of detachedness. And the first one and the biggest one is the point of view. So do you see how the point of view is, like, we're like, way above we're super far away from the character, so the fox or from the train or the people in the train that you're, you know, supposing are in there. So there's, like, really kind of this like, Oh, we're not really part of it. We're observing it. And so there's that detachment. The second thing is, I think the thing that connects both of them, that endless spaciousness also somehow creates a sense of slight detachedness because they're both very smooth and it's not very realistic. I could be wrong about that one, but that's how I I see it. Yeah, so you think it's the point of view and the focal figure is tiny. Exactly. So that goes to show that even compositionally, the choice of your point of view participates in your composition. If you want to show the emotion of a character, you cannot have a point of view that is this far away. You can convey feeling in a different way, like we did here. We're conveying, you know, a feeling through the landscape. But if you want to convey a feeling of a specific character, then you probably need to be a little bit closer to your character. It's funny. Like, that's why I kind of talked about it because I realized the more I've learned about composition, often it's not something that people talk about at the forefront, whereas, for me, that's always been at the forefront. And people usually usually they talk about it kind of afterward or as a consequence of all the other choices that they've made. But I find that when you really try to work on, let's say, an abstract piece, and you're like, Oh, I want to create an abstract piece that feels sad, that will automatically lead to different types of shapes than when you're creating an abstract piece that ful. And yeah, I would invite you to do that exercise, then, because starting with the abstraction is the easiest way. It's also the hardest, but it's also the easiest because you don't have the distractions of what it is that you're representing, and you're just thinking about the shapes, the textures, the placement of those shapes in your page, and what that conveys. 9. Planned or Intuitive: Same Principles: So what I did want to mention is everything that I've been talking about today has been talking about kind of building a piece intentionally from the bottom up, you know? Like you might have an idea, and that's kind of what we're going to do with some of our brainstorming, all the little exercises, that kind of thing. But I want to make sure that you know that all these principles apply even if you're working intuitively. So you'll know that most of my work that I've done has been intuitively. And what I mean by that is most of the time, I come to my sketchbook and I have no idea what I want to draw, and I just start making marks. And as I make marks, I have different ideas or things that come up, or I'm just enjoying playing with the marks and seeing where it brings me. All those principles that we talked about compositionally apply even if you're using that method. It's just more challenging because you're not thinking of it from the ground up and you're having to constantly adapt. Shift and observe what's happening and kind of dialogue with yourself in terms of what's happening compositionally. So I just wanted that to be clear that all these principles can be applied no matter what the method is that you use to make your 10. Start Your Project: Two Value Puzzle Pieces: So here's what we're going to start out with. So I want you to grab, This is just a random page that has, like, some texture on it, but grab a piece of paper, or you can rip it out of, like, a cheap sketchbook, if that's better. So I'm going to actually just rip this. Okay, so we're going to take a piece of paper, and you can either use paint or a marker, but I'm going to ask you to simply, and maybe we'll cut it in half one more time. And one of these sheets, I'm going to use a marker because that'll be the easiest, and I'm just going to cover all of it in black. It can be a dark gray if you don't have any black. And you don't have to go all the way to the edges. It's just so that you have, like, a big black shape. That's a permanent marker. Oops. Alright. With my second page, I'm going to actually do kind of a mid gray, and maybe that's not dark enough, so I'm going to go a little bit darker. To say, my gray is more of a purple. I need to find, like, one that is It's okay. If there's a little bit of a tint to your color, it's not a big deal. There we go. That's a better mid gray. And you might be doing this with paint. That's another option, gouache or something or acrylic. Something that dries fast would be better than let's say watercolor. But a marker is a great alternative. Obviously, it's not perfect because you see, like, the marks, and actually, like I said, my paper wasn't white. It has a little flex in it, but whatever, it's fine. It's not a big deal. And what we're going to do with our two little sheets of paper is we're just going to cut up some shapes. And some of these can be a regular shape, as in, oh, I want to cut a circle or rectangle or a triangle. But you can also have just weird shapes, okay? So we're going to do a bunch of them. And I want you to actually have different sizes of shapes, okay? So right now I'm making mine quite small. Doing a rectangle. But I could then just make also some weird blobby shape. Maybe I can make a tiny triangle and not an Iosles one, like, something a little different like that. And you can even, like, you know, because you have shapes that are kind of cut out already from, like, what you cut out, you can even use that as a shape. So, you know, this is, like, some sort of weird line with, like, a ridge in it. Um, this one is a blob, but a geometrical blob with, like, lines, you know. But then I also maybe want to do something a little big. Like, what if I did one big shape over here like this? Oh, sorry, I realized you can't see what I'm doing. Here you go. Like, what if I did a big shape like that? Or big shape like that. I know we don't usually do cutting in our live drawing sessions, but I thought today it would be fun to do this. You know, you could also have straight lines, more triangles. Let's do one last one over here. Okay, I could keep on cutting, but I'm just gonna leave it at that, basically. And we're going to do the same thing with our midtone. You can keep all your tiny little parts. It's good to have a big range of sizes. Okay? And I mean, actually, I could have gone even bigger, but that's okay, or you can go even tinier. So these are my little black pile, and I'm going to do the same thing with my gray. Oh, I might put in a triangle and circle. Maybe I'll make a circle that's slightly bigger. You don't need to be a perfectionist about it. Cutting circles is hard. If it looks kind of like a wonky circle, that's fine. Remember to also have tiny little shapes. You know, you can even just cut little things like that, thin lines, make some blobs. Maybe I'll make one really big one that kind of more geometrical stuff. I can make more if I need more. 11. Puzzle-Piecing Your First Composition: So now we're going to go back to our sketchbooks and just open to a blank page. I'm going to just make a few rectangular things they can be vertical too, if you want. If you want to explore that, but I think something like that. 'Cause the thing is, you know, with composition, like, we often resort to rectangles, but you can also make squares. That can be a fun switch in composition, and that makes a big difference in your composition, actually. So now we're just going to play around with some of these shapes. And so what you'll notice is, of course, you have the white of the page, which is your third value, okay? And so the cool thing here is that we don't have a subject, and we're really just kind of playing around with, Oh, what if I put these shapes down on my page? It doesn't matter if they stick out the sides, that's totally fine. You can do it in different sides. Then look at the thing that I've been doing here. I've been doing each shape kind of individually, right? Who said you had to do that? You can overlap shapes. And kind of see, well, wait, what does that do if I overlap a shape? And if I change its direction, and is there something interesting? Something that just captures my attention where I'm like, Oh, that's kind of cool. Oh, I only used one value here, but what if I actually come in and add a few more? Or what if there's a shape that I think of and I'm like, Oh, wouldn't it be fun to add a little shape here? You can try to see if it gives you ideas. So for example, I had this on the side, but then now when I put it like this, it reminds me of a tree, sort of wonky sort of tree, right? What if I had a little sun or something and you can experiment and be like, Oh, what if I add that? No, don't like that. What if I add it over here? What if I add a little bit more? Oh, I know. I'm gonna use some of these mid grays. And I just want you basically I want you to allow yourself to fall in love with shapes. For me, I think that's really what art is about is shapes. And when we allow ourselves to fall in love with them, it just like everything becomes just a source of endless curiosity. Okay, I'm not sure I like that one there. What if I added it over here? What if I connected that? What if instead of my moon? And do you see what I mean? I decided that I would have a moon or a sun over here. I'm not staying stuck with that idea. I'm still allowing myself to play. Okay, well, what if instead this is like clouds, gigantic cloud. Does that work? Kind of works, but not as much as I'd like. So this is really just reconnecting with a sense of playfulness, and I think that's really my bottom line here is composition can be something that you can play with. I'm pretty happy with that, but something bothering me over here. Maybe you would if I add a little bit more detail over here. Oh, that makes it much more interesting to me. Okay. So once I land on something, then I think it's fun to just kind of contour what I'm doing, 'cause, of course, these shapes are imperfect. Or maybe you think they're perfect. In which case, you can just glue them down. That's also a total possibility. But I just like simplicity of this. Okay. Those ones are out of the way. Okay. And what's interesting with this is, you know, I'm doing the outline of this whole block, which is a mix of my very dark color and my mid. But then I can remove the mid ones and then outline my dark ones. And I kind of remember what's right. So this is basically my structure. Oh, and in this, they touch, but in my original, they didn't touch, so I could just adjust that when I'm doing it. And then I can just go in. I put this a find in my page so it doesn't bleed through. And I can go back in with my marker and just fill in with the same values. Oh, this one's darker. Oops. Man, you should write down which colors you use? 'Cause I just screwed mine up. That's okay. Okay. This is the one. We'll just say it's a little bit darker than what I intended. This was also kind of a mid tone, and then we had black. Over here. And this is a really fun exercise when you're not sure what it is that you want to draw, and it can give you ideas of things and feel free to kind of change the shapes a little if you want. So I'm going to make my trunk a little thinner, maybe. But I do like the shape of that make it maybe a little blockier. Can give you an idea of something to work with. And you can at any point because you're the one in charge, right? So you can at any point, add things, modify the shapes a little. So I don't know why for some reason, I want to add a swing here. I just feels like the kind of place with a swing where a swing would be fun and cool. You can, you know, maybe add a few branches that you didn't see. And if you're using paint, you can even add a little bit more detail, but still you want to maintain that simplicity, right? I'm actually, I feel like it would be fun to connect maybe these shadow cloud spaces. Maybe have the edge of another cloud over here, something like that. There's a fun composition that I would not have thought of if I hadn't allowed myself to just play around with shapes. Hopefully you've arrived at something, or if you're in the middle of outlining, I'm going to just invite you to join me on this second one and you can maybe finish the outlining or sorry, the coloring in after 12. Two-Value Composition: Start With a Feeling: For this second one, I want us to actually think of a feeling. So let's say we want to make something scary. What would I do if I wanted to make something scary? What kind of composition looks scary? So you can think back to some of the things that we saw maybe in the images earlier. I think something with a lot of darkness at the top, for example, could be scary. The shapes really allow you to kind of just group things by value. Maybe what if I let only just a very thin path? That looks kind of sharp, and I'm only using a mid tone, but you can also you can choose. Maybe you only want to do a two value draw. You only want to use black and white for your scary one. Just play around with making something interesting. What is it that feels interesting to you? And then if you are, like, lacking shapes and you want to add shapes, you can do that. I'm going to do that here. I want to have some, like, straight lines for some reason. You know, we talked about in some of the compositions that we saw that pointy shapes automatically can invoke something a little bit scary. That's one option. But what if you also tried to do it a different way? So I'm doing kind of pointy shapes, but I'm trying to do it more in terms of the placement of my values. And if it makes you think of something figurative and you want to make it more figurative, that's fine. Please feel free to do that. Don't like that one in there. What if? It's hard to, like, grab the tiny shapes. I don't know if you agree, but I'm struggling with the tiny shapes. I don't know, for some reason, it makes me think kind of like a scary forest. I guess 'cause I love forests in general, maybe. That's why. There's something about that that I think is fun. Okay, so I'm going to keep mine at two value drawing and I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to outline my shapes, and of course, I'm going to adjust to I actually quite like these little white spots that are at the top here. They can give some breathing room. I feel like I haven't done this since I was a kid. I don't know about you, but I'm loving it. I hope you are too. Okay. I'm just going to fill this in now. Oh, no, I went over to the little triangle that I wanted to have in there. Oops. That's okay. When that happens, just adjust and maybe modify your composition a little. Yeah, there's something quite interesting about that. I might add more little lines for some reason. To me, this is feeling pretty scary in the sense that it feels very constricted, there's nowhere really to 13. Compositions 3+4: Non-Realism & Creating a Path: Alright. I realized that I just placed these earlier, and I really love this. It's super simple. So, you know, if you just happen to have a random assortment of shapes where you're like, Oh, that's cool. You know, you can also just note that down. To me, it looks like a mountainous landscape, which is cool. And what you'll notice also, I don't know if you've noticed. Maybe you haven't noticed. But one thing that can help a good composition is having a variety of different shapes. So having some shapes that are small, some that are big, some that are tiny. And that variation in and of itself is really intriguing for the viewer for an eye to look at. Also playing around. Ing? Oh, that's fun. Oh, that's like a lake with a mountain that's coming out of the lake. Ooh, fun. Okay. Because the cool thing with illustrating is that you don't need to be realistic in order for it to represent something. So I can make a landscape that is not realistic in terms of perspective, and you can still recognize it as a landscape. And maybe in doing this exercise, it actually maybe forces you to make it a little bit less realistic. If you know how to make it realistic, if you want to actually be practicing making, like, a real like, sorry, accurate, like, landscape with perspective. Obviously, this would be more of a kind of ideation thing, and you would have to work it in to make it more accurate with, you know, perspective, et cetera, et cetera. But also, isn't realism overrated? Alright. And honestly, I'm having a lot of fun with this. I hope that you guys are, too, and this is the kind of thing we literally could spend, you know, 2 hours just doing this. But I did have a few other exercises to do, so we're not going to do just this. So maybe start getting to the end of what you're doing. And, you know, you can go for very simple compositions, kind of like the one I just did, or you can try to have things that are a bit more complex with more shapes or you can even, you know, you could even do something like, Oh, I like this blob. What if I just have that blob? Then I have one line over here. What maybe two lines. You know, who says that you have to tons of stuff down. You don't. You can just make small minimalist type paintings and just notice how look, if I just put this, what is my painting about? Clearly, it's about this blob. If I do this, what is it about? Oh, there's some sort of relationship between the two. My eye dances between the two. If I add another little thing over here, what happens there? Oh, okay. It calls my attention. And you can really kind of learn to see how your eye reacts. To varying values, varying shapes, how things interact with each other or don't happens to the path of your eye when you add or remove different elements? This really teaches you so much about what you can do with your image. I'll finish this up. And then I think I am gonna cause isn't it fun to do something a little bit more minimalist and abstract separate elements. Let's do one that has something a little bit like that. Just outline these last ones, and then we'll move on to the next exercise. Okay. Third line. So I will. I'm going to add a third one over here. Thinner. I kind of forgot what values I put for each one of these, but I think this one was gray. I think I remember it. Let me just add in the darks and I can see what feels more right. But I can already say, even just looking at the ones that I just did, that this last one that I did to me, feels a little less interesting. And so that's an interesting observation. You know, you can be like, Oh, why is that? Then maybe you can play around with adding a few things. Like, Okay. Maybe that makes it a little bit more interesting, but you know what? I don't know. I just feel like I need maybe more small details over here, for example, or maybe I need a bigger section of Black. Maybe my proportion my proportions are wrong. And I say wrong. There's nothing wrong. There's no right or wrong in composition. It's just about what serves your message or not. And obviously, in this one, I didn't like, specify specific message, and maybe that's why this one is more difficult. Maybe that's why this one isn't working as well as the one where I wanted to do something scary, for example. No, you can just keep adding stuff, see what that does. This is becoming more interesting to me now. You know, when you start doing this, it's almost like akin to doodling. It feels like an infinite thing that, you know, could just keep going. So I'm going to stop there because we do have a few little other exercises I want to get to. So, who knows? Maybe you've arrived at a few compositions that you like, and maybe you've arrived at none that you like, but at least you've kind of played around with these shapes, explored, seen how your eye reacts to the different colors, the different values. And it's an exercise that you can come back to no matter what. I can use this and be like, Okay, I didn't think I was going to do, like painting with a landscape, but with a mountain and a mountain coming out of a lake. But that's just what I saw here. And it's cool, and I'm pretty happy with the composition. So why wouldn't I play around with that, you know, see how I can represent it. 14. Your Personal Piece: The Idea Saprk: I hope that you guys have had fun doing some drawing or warming up. We're going to now start into our composition exercises. So hopefully you all have something that you are thinking of. Either you have a piece next to you that's a piece that you did that you didn't like. And so you kind of know what's in it and that you want to, like, maybe rework compositionally, or you thought of something over the past, you know, 45 minutes of what you wanted to do today, or you might have a little thumbnail of something that you want to going to show you what my starting point is. My initial spark is this little tiny illustration. I'm going to actually be working on paper today just because I know most of you were working on paper, and I think that can be fun. But I wanted to show you what it is that I'm starting out with. So those of you who participated in the art retreat in May, you'll recognize this actually from when we did the retreat, I kind of had an art material list that everyone got and also a day by day breakdown of what it was that we were going to do. And so I made these kind of little illustrations to illustrate the bottom of it and the sides of it. And I actually really love color combo. Obviously, the colors that you're seeing on the screen are not the same as what I'm seeing on my iPad, so they're slightly different. But I would love to create an illustration based on this, as in, like, this is kind of a starting point of the vibe or the thing that I'm kind of looking for. And I don't really have any other clarity, other than I want to create an illustration that is more about a journey and maybe a landscape. So obviously, these are very common themes or common prompts, but that's what I'm starting out with. Okay? So hopefully you have you might have something that's actually more advanced than what I have. I will tell you that, for example, what I'm choosing today is probably more complicated how can I say than what I would recommend? I guess. Just because both of these are so vast that there's, like, a kajillion ways that you can do them. So if you really want to just work on one simple thing, like, Oh, I want to draw a little house or I want to draw a little windmill or beautiful tree, or I want to draw a cat, you know, and my cat needs to be the focal point. You know, that might be easier than going for kind of things that I'm going for. But I just felt like I should just go with the thing that I want to do, even if it's more challenging. If you want to go ahead and challenge yourself, feel free to, as well. So I'm going to just show you how I would kind of work with these very vague starting points. If you have more precise ideas, you'll be able to follow along with your own ideas, but just applying the same principles, but you'll probably just be a little bit more precise than I will. So what we're going to do now is we're going to do the brainstorm phase. So I want to know how many of you actually allow yourselves to really brainstorm visually have my little snippet here. I could, if I wanted to just, you know, represent very, very summarily, some of the shapes that I have here, just to remind me of what it is that I'm working with, or I could just keep it alongside me the whole time. I like that. Then we have my rock. I have a rock that I had a lot of fun making, and then I have my little trees or bushes, rather, with little fruits on them. And then, of course, I had my grass. So you can see I'm doing this, like, super messy, and that's fine. I could maybe put some lines in my rock just to remind me of kind of what I've done with my rock. And I have two plants over here. Okay. 15. Brainstorm: Feeling & Mood: So in the brainstorm phase, we want to maintain the exact same freedom that we had in this. We want to allow ourselves to play, to just try stuff out, to not worry about the results. Our drawings can be ugly. It's not about that. So if I'm thinking about journey and landscape, and I have these elements in mind, okay? So since I'm thinking of a landscape, I think I'm going to go more horizontal, which is, you know, more classic, but I think that'll work. What I'm going to start with, actually, now that I know I kind of have an idea of some of the elements might be in my illustration, but not really because journey and landscape can be very vast and I might not be that close up that I can see these elements. My first order of business is thinking of a feeling. So, you know, we were talking about it earlier how a feeling is a great way into an illustration. It's the one that I swear by because I love it. And because I think it really gives you a north star in terms of what your shapes might be, where you might be going, that kind of thing. So a feeling can be many different things. So you can already just sort of kind of identify the main feeling. I'll just give you an idea of the primary ones. Happy, sad, disgusted, angry, fearful, bad, or surprised. Those are the main ones. So identify one that you think would be fun to convey in your drawing. And then you can look at the secondary ones. You know? So let's say you want to have something that's more on the sad spectrum, you could have lonely, vulnerable, despair, guilty, depressed or hurt. If you wanted more on the happy, you could have optimistic, trusting, peaceful, powerful, accepted, proud, interested, content play. Can kind of just look at any of these words and see if there's any one of them that kind of jumps out at you. It can also be a word that isn't in this. So for example, I don't see nostalgia in the sad section, but nostalgia is one that I personally use all the time. I love things that are nostalgic, and it's just one kind of feeling that I really love because it has this blend of happy and sad that I find really appealing somehow. You can sometimes have these intersections between like two feelings or two things. And then how can you maybe use the colors, for example, or the other elements of the design to lean more towards one or towards the other? So I'm going to write down I think nostalgic is one. And then I might think of something else that is related to mood, but that isn't necessarily a direct feeling. So just imagine what it is that you're wanting to represent. And what is a characteristic of that that you would like to represent? So, for example, if you took a super large one like landscape, you could think, well, what kind of landscape? Do I want a peaceful landscape? Do I want a wild landscape? Do I want a spooky landscape? That also participates in mood, even if it's not a direct feeling from the feelings wheel. Here are characteristics that I think I want in my landscape. I want something windy. Since there's a journey, maybe I'll have a character of some sort. I really like grass, so I want grasses and I want different kinds of plants. Do I want trees? I'm not totally sure yet. Maybe I'll put in trees? Could there be a water? There could be some sort of river, but maybe not. We'll see. You can just write down any words that kind of come to mind. And now I want you to try to play around with just placing these elements. And again, we're in this phase where we're not ruling anything out. So let's say, if I'm thinking of windy grasses, you know, I could do something like from above and just have, like, tons of windy grasses, and it would just create this massive pattern. Actually, it's reminding me of an illustration that I absolutely love. But I think that that would be maybe too simple. Then I could have like, you know, little rocks looking through some flowers. But I'm still going to play with it. That's the thing is even if I'm like, Oh, I don't know about this, allow yourself to play with the idea all the way to the end. So I could have a character that you see from really far, maybe over here. Maybe the character's dark. Maybe there's a tree over here to kind of balance it out. How small is my character? I don't know. I have a lot of plants over here. Okay, let me think of another image. What if I have a little bit of a river? Or what if I'm looking at kind of windy hills and you see my character from behind pretty close up. There's wind maybe in their hair. And what are they looking at? They're kind of looking this way. Maybe there's actually a little house way in the distance that they're looking at, and I have some plants and some rocks. But again, I'm not I don't want to get bogged down too much by the details, and I'm really wanting to think of kind of the big shapes and the big arc of my drawing. Let's do some more. I'm gonna do another one over 16. Brainstorm: Play with Shapes + All Ideas: And if you want, you can also actually come back in with the shapes that you made already. And be like, Okay, so, let's say, I'm like, Oh, I'm not really finding something with just my pencil. What if instead I used these shapes, like, Oh, this could be my character. The hills are over here. So, but I want to have an interesting composition, so I'm still thinking of, like, Oh, okay, well, where's my balance of lights and darks? What am I doing here with this? Pointing in the back. I could have a volcano in the background. Anything goes. In this phase, really anything goes. If my tiny little house is just you just see the roof. So I just have one tiny little triangle. And what if my character is actually smaller? I'm gonna just cut out a character maybe in here. What if I made this dark over here? And my character is kind of, like, looking out onto this vast landscape. That's another option. Okay. So if I take that and I kind of represent what I'm thinking, like, let's say there's, like, a big and all this is really dark. And my character is looking down kind of at the landscape, but the wind is like rushing. Then all the rest. And then you have this tiny little house over here. I don't know what this is. I think I might add maybe some trees or some shadows or something that kind of something like that, maybe some trees. And then you can use your graphite to kind of darken some of those areas so that you can get a better sense of what you're doing. Wanted that to be a small thing. My character would be dark. And then I would have maybe the midtone over here. But then I would maybe have some lighter spots like some white highlights that kind of like little plants or maybe it's like there's clouds all around, but then there's some light spots over here where you can see things in light. So I don't know if you can see, but my drawings are really ugly. And that's the point with this phase is really we're not looking for anything beautiful. We're just looking to think on paper and to think of shapes and to think of values and to think of the placement of the elements and really just allow all of those things to be a playground. So, what if I erase that completely, and I think, Okay, well, what if instead the grasses are super high? Still have my little roof over here. But actually, I'm kind of looking through grasses, and maybe you see my character walking through the grasses over here. But there's already been a bit of a journey. And who knows? Maybe there's like a river over here. So it's like the banks of a river, kind of. And then allow yourself to also flip things around. You know, I've been pretty static with the fact that my house is on the horizon. What if I don't have a house? What if it's a tree and it's over here somehow in this area, in this wind blown area? What if that? I've been doing also the wind in this direction. So you have to kind of notice what you assumed when you're doing your drawing and then change those assumptions. So I assumed that the wind would be blowing in this direction because of the idea of a journey, and I want to move towards something. But what if I flip that on its head and I was like, No, but the wind actually goes in the other direction. So instead of going that way, it'll go that way. Then I'm flipping this around. Maybe it won't work, but that's the point of this section is to really allow any and all ideas, even the worst ones to survive. We maybe have more trees that are kind of and the wind is going. It's funny. It makes me realize how I never make the wind go in this direction. It's actually hard for me to drive in that way. But that could be interesting. Then what if I had a sort of path like this, a meandering path like that? That could be fun, so maybe that would actually increase this idea of the journey. Maybe I make it a little daunting by making it too thin at the top so that it's like we're almost stuck in these trees. And what if I have no character? And what if it's really more about this grass and this tree? Quite like that. It's not a bad idea. So I'm not finished with my brainstorm. Obviously, you've only done a few of them like I have, but this is something that I would continue until I feel like I've landed on something very solid and that I'm excited about. And maybe within that, you might actually be like, Oh, but I actually two of these images. And so then that can give you an idea of a series or, like, three of them. I'm like, Oh, it would be cool to do one from this and one like this and one like that. But even within one image, allow yourself to play with moving things around, okay? Make it ugly, bring out all the ideas, play with it, play with the values, play with the shapes until you arrive at something that feels a little bit more 17. Ungrouping Objects & Values: I wanted to show you one last thing. Here's a very important principle that is one that I never really thought of until maybe a year or two ago. Sounds, you know, but that's how you learn things, you know, you learn things and then you learn a little more, and then you're like, Oh, wait. How did I never think of that before? The values and your objects don't need to overlap. Okay, what do I mean by that? It's maybe not the right words exactly. I didn't know how to convey exactly. What I meant is the values and your objects, they don't need to be mirrored on top of each other. So let me give you an example. Let's say you have a landscape and you have a tree, and you have a character, and you have a rock, and you have grass. When you think of those different elements, I think automatically, you just think, Okay, well, my tree, it's gonna be dark my grass is going to be light. My character depends on what they're wearing, I guess. But do you see what I mean? It's kind of like there's this fixed idea of the object having a value. But the thing is, if you do that, it doesn't mean that it can't work. There are a lot of people that make it work and it can work, and I've made it work, and other people have made it work, and it's a totally fine way of creating an image. It's the only thing you ever do, then you're missing out on this whole swath of a compositional tool. So, for example, you can have a tree, and part of the trunk is dark and part of the trunk is light because maybe there's some sort of cloud coming, and there's light shining on it, for example. Same thing with your character. Or maybe you thought of your grass as light, but actually your grass has dark patches in it. And this is where we get back to that notion of simplicity carries power and the fact that your values are the most important, which I didn't write down. But but that's the point. The values are what are most important. Not your objects. Okay? So that's what I mean when I say the values and your objects, they don't need to be one to one. It's not one object, one value. Think of your values first, and here are some beautiful examples of where the objects and the values do not overlap. A stunning painting by Andrea Kova it's Pastel, if I'm not mistaken, the bulk of her work is Pastel, though she does a range of different things. Think of a cloud. You think of a white cloud. Okay, yeah, maybe it's a little bit darker at the bottom. So, okay, it's got two values. But look at how stark the value difference is between the bottom part of this cloud and the top part of this cloud. And look at the separation. Isn't that interesting? It's just a straight line. It's not even very realistic at all, but it is so powerful, and it creates a stunning image. She designs creating images, composing our images is designing them, designing the values so that they serve the purpose. Here, to me, the purpose of this image, and, you know, we can argue about it, but, like, if you have another idea of what you think this image is about. But for me, this image is about wind, it's about light, and it's about birds. And you really get that from the composition. If she had made the entire cloud white, yeah, it would still be about wind. I'm not sure it would be about the birds as much. Because the fact that we have this line, it kind of leads you to those birds. And then you notice you have some birds that are in the darkness and some birds that are in the light. And so it's really about that playing between the light and the dark. Almost like your own language. Exactly. And that's why, yeah, Heidi, that's why you need to have an idea or a feeling in mind first and to compose with values because that's what will drive the message of your image. Here's another example, and this is the one that I was telling was making me think of when I was like, Oh, I want to do a lot of grasses. This is an image I've loved for years. I've had it on my Pinterest forever. It actually and I've never shared it before because you know how on Pinterest, it's really annoying. Sometimes people share images, but they don't know the artist. And it's like Pet peeve. I'm like, God sake. Like, just share the artist. So it took me forever to find the artist that created this piece, stella Park. And here's another example of an object not being just the color that you think it is. Do you see the grass has shadows on it, and the shadows are used in the design of the image. You have that darkness that is the diagonal bottom. Which brings you to the character. Immediately, obviously, you look at the character, and you look at the cat, too. There's like a straight line that connects the two. But actually, you also have those shadows that kind of bring you around to a curve back to the cat. So it's like this circular triangle, if you will. And here, again, it would be a very, very different image if the grass was just yellow white. You wouldn't have that same feeling. You would maybe not get that sense of spaciousness as much as you do in this one where you feel like it's connected to a world outside of the image, as well. So even though you don't see a sky, the sky is also represented here through those shadows. That's more like symbolically or in terms of elements, but more concretely in terms of visual design, is helping guide your eye to the important elements of the image. So remember that your objects can have multiple values. So here, I'll give you just an example. Let's get back to our and we're not going to do much drawing because I realize that we're coming to time, but I do want to kind of show you what I mean by that or how you can use. 18. Ungrouping: Rock Example: What I want you to do is we're going to actually take we're going to do just five more minutes of drawing, if that's okay with you. And we're going to draw something really simple. So we're going to use some color. Colors fun. So I have a few colors here. And we're going to draw something simple. You could draw a tree, you could draw a plant. You could draw a rock. And I'm just going to So, like, let's say I'm drawing a rock. Okay. Actually, the other session that we were gonna consider was doing a whole session on rocks and cliffs. If you've never drawn a rock before, that's okay. It's hard. Don't worry about it. It's just an example, okay? But you can draw something different. You could do a plant or a tree, and that would be also perfect. So let's say I'm thinking like, Oh, okay, I'm kind of in a deserty landscape, and I'm using a different color for part of this. But pretty much this is my rock. Okay? You can argue about if it looks like a rock or not. I probably doesn't that's okay. Forgive me if my rock skills are not up to par. We haven't done a rock session yet. But here's my rock, okay? I'm like, Okay, cool. I have a rock. The thing is, my rock is all one value, right? I'm like, Oh, yeah, my rock's brown, blah, blah, blah. But what if in my composition, I decided like, Oh, but I want my composition to be Sorry, I'm trying to give you a better example. Like, I want a dark shape here only goes to here, and then I want light shape here. And then I'm gonna have a dark shape over here and a dark shape over here or something. So let's say I mean, this is not a very good composition, but just to show you, okay? So this is a composition that I landed on. I'm like, Oh, okay, like, I just find this shape really interesting, these values really interesting. And now I want to bring in my elements of my landscape. And I'm like, Oh, but I had my rock that I designed, and that doesn't fit into any of these shapes. I can do exactly this. I'm like, Okay, I'm going to try to keep that shape that I had. It's kind of dark. And for the rest of my rock, maybe it's a lighter color. Oops, I went past a little bit. Sorry, that defeats the purpose of my example. And I'm using very unrealistic colors here, right? It's just because that's only what I have on hand. But you can imagine, like, oh, maybe there's sun shining through the clouds. And yeah, maybe I'm going to have to do a few things like add kind of a contact shadow so that it's clear that it's connected, you know, or something like that. But then let's say if I wanted my grasses to also be light. And that's why I wanted this composition specifically because I wanted this big light spot over here, and I only wanted a dark spot here. It can so do you see what I mean? It gives you another realm of possibilities to expand on if each of your objects is not beholden to a single value. And I wish I had done a better example, but I hope you get a sense of what I mean here. Another example, I guess, is, let's say, if I've had a tree, and I've done this before in some of my illustrations, like I have a tree or sorry, do the opposite. But the bottom of the trunk is in the light, and so it's a lighter value. And yeah, I still understand that it's a tree. Again, I might, you know, darken one side for the shadow or something, but the main grouping of that value is a lighter color. And so maybe that'll work better compositionally with what I had planned, where the values at this section are light. So do you see how this opens up a whole new realm when you don't connect the objects and the values. But when the objects serve your values and not the other way around. 19. Becoming Comfortable With Ugly: I would love to hear how it went. See what you made if you feel like sharing, even though it's, you know, I mean, mine isn't much. I can maybe show you mine again just so you can see the kind of you know, we're working when you're working with composition, you have to be very comfortable with the ugliness. Ugly drawings are a part of it. So I can just go back to showing you where we started with these shapes. All these fun little shapes that you now have a little repository of mid tones and dark tones to play with. If you ever feel bored and you just want to do some collage, we drew them out, but you could, of course, glue them to the page. Very, very fun. And then the brainstorm, thinking of emotion, thinking of what will participate in terms of the shapes, in terms of the values, and allowing yourself to play within those realms until you land on something solid. And then also the fact that your shapes do not need to be connected only to a single value. And that will give you a lot more to work with in terms of your composition. 20. Final Thoughts: Thank you so much for joining in this class today. I hope that you enjoyed it, that you learned a few things here or there, and I would love to see what you made in the project section, even if it's just these process, these attempts, these maybe ugly drawings. But these are really where the fruit of your artwork really lies. Yes, the finished pieces are great. We love to share those. But everything that comes before that to me is almost more beautiful because it's a testament of the journey that you've taken and how much you've been learning along the way. So I hope that you'll share your shape exercises, maybe your brainstorm, as well as the thumbnails in the project section, and that you cheer each other on because that is also what art is about. It's also about creating a community of people that can accompany us on this journey. Of course, like I said, the class was taken from my cozy little Art Cafe, which is the place where I host two live classes every month on Patrion and it's a lovely, beautiful community where we get to dive really deep into a bunch of different topics that you get to vote on. So if ever you did want to join in that, of course, you are most welcome to join our cozy little art cafe. And if not a problem, I will still always post other classes over here on Skillshare, one or two a year, something like that. I'm going to aim for more, but we'll see. And other than that, of course, you can find me on Instagram. Well as YouTube, where I sometimes share creative exercises as well. So many places to connect. I am really excited to get to know you a little bit more, so please share in the project section. And if you like the class, it would mean the world to me if you left a review. So please consider doing that. I would mean a lot. I hope you have a lovely day. I think that's it. Yeah. All right. Congrats. Bye.