Improving Composition in Sketches or “Failed” Paintings With Viewfinders

1. Introduction: Do you also have those piles of papers from exercise sheets, Artwork you have started, never finished, or you're just not happy with and you got stuck, or clash papers. Well, it might be not good enough to hang, but it's also good to go to the trash. You're just collecting those papers. What if I tell you you are already sitting on a trash trove of artwork? You just have to find those hidden gems. In this course, I'm going to show you how you can use few finders to find amazing pieces. Just average work. Sounds interesting. Then go tidy up your art space, collect all those papers, and let's dive in together. 2. Benefit from Using Viewfinders: As an artist, you are often creating work quite intuitively like at least I am not thinking about the composition. While this approach allows for a lot of spontaneity, it doesn't always lead to well composed pieces. That's where few finders come in. Few finders are very versatile tools that help you discover those hidden chants within your artwork or even your practice sheets. In this tutorial, we'll explore how to use few finders and the various options you have to incorporate them into your creative process. If you find that is basically a simple tool made from paper or cut board with a cut out resembling a net frame that you'd be using to frame your artwork. It allows you to isolate and focus on specific sections in your image, providing that framed perspective and adding a calm border to your selected area. 3. Try Standard Mount Sizes: If you're really thinking about having something to frame. The most affordable option is to start working with standard mounts like standard passport Du, that already have a cut out. Those are not very expensive. You could buy those, but you could also research the sizes and then cut the same size out of paper that you don't have to buy it in advance. But you know, like when you use your fuel finder, you will be able to find a mat that will fit your section and also get an affordable frame for that. Maybe you already have a frame with a mat inside and then you could take that out and use that as if you find, although I would recommend if you want to have that size, I would measure it and cut it from some paper because you wouldn't want to trace this because it could get, like, dirty or get fingerprints on it. But you could research those sizes and then cut your own for like the searching purpose. 4. Customize Your Viewfinders: If you don't want to stick to those available sizes because they just don't fit your vision. Because usually when you buy a mat in this four format, you will get a pretty big cut out like this and just a four centimeter frame. But maybe I want to have like a frame that is that big and just have this little image in the middle. Then you would obviously have to make your own and then ordered mat or just use simple cardboard to make your own. I have a lot of them and I can try the different sizes and see what I like the best. 5. Explore Unique Formats: For even more flexibility, You can cut two L shaped paper pieces and you want to use a rather large sheet of paper for that. Maybe even larger than the ones that I have used right here, so that you are more flexible on both ends. Now you can use those and slide them over your artwork to get very different formats. You can get very unusual formats. You can also go from small things, look at it in square format, or how would it look if it would be more landscape formats? You're really flexible with looking at your art and just finding a section that you like. 6. Discover Different Framing Options: Now when you have found a section that you like, you don't necessarily have to put it under amount. Like you don't necessarily have to buy a amount to frame it, but you could also cut it out and put it on top of some paper and then frame it. Or maybe if you want to make some customized cards, you can just stick it on top of this paper. You don't necessarily need amount, but if you want to use amount, it's always a good idea to have. Like if you find the size of your final cut out. Also have a second one that is a little bit larger. It is recommended. Okay, This one is a little bit larger but it's not completely aligned. You would want to have the cutout section centered at the same space. But it doesn't matter so much. I can align it here so that I have a bigger border around my section. Now when I frame this, it actually looks good that way. Doing a frame like that, just the second one on top, little bit of dimension. But actually what I wanted to show you is that you can now, like you would keep this set and remove the smaller one. Then you could take a pencil and trace it and cut it out. When you frame something, you don't want to have the same size as your cut out obviously, but you need to have it a little bit overlapping and go under your mat. 7. Start an Inspiration Book: Another thing is that not all the sections that you may find in your practice sheets will result in a grading card or an out that you want to hang. But maybe there is something in it that you just want to keep and then you can stick it in a sketch book. I have this little book where I just stick in pieces of paper scraps that I had left over from collage. Sometimes I add some marks and sometimes there was something that I wanted to keep. I didn't want to throw it away. I cut it out and put it in here. Later on I refer to this, that's some new ideas. When I'm out of ideas, I can look at it. And then I might get inspired by the pattern or the colors. And it will be there as your self made inspiration board. 8. Create a Class Project: Your task is now to go and research some standard sizes. If you're thinking about framing something, you want to like research those sizes that are most common in your country, whether it's in centimeters or in inches. Then go ahead and cut your own mounts. Or from cardboard like card stock or thicker paper in the same sizes that if you decide to frame it, you can get them very cost effectively. You need to use paper that is opaque, that is not see through, so it has to be a little bit thicker. You can use a variety of colors. Usually those mats also are available in a couple of colors. The most common are obviously white and little bit off white page. But you could also cut those few finders in gray or black or maybe those browns. Because it's fun if you have an artwork and you can try those different colors, how it will change, how it will bring out that artwork differently. Like how would it look when I use white around? Or how would it look when I use gray? Does it speak to the colors that I use or not? This is a great way to do this. Now, I want to challenge you to go ahead and look through your drawers, your cupboard, wherever you put those papers, clean up your studio, clean up your work space, whatever laundry room, wherever you paint. Go ahead and look for those hidden gems in your practice sheets and unfinished artworks. I look forward to seeing what you have found. Please go ahead and post a class project so that I can take a look at all the other students as well. If you like this, if it was inspiring, please take the time to leave a review. It's very helpful if you do that. And it also helps other students find out if the class is right for them. That's all I have for now. I hope to see you soon, maybe in another of my classes and have fun creating by now. 9. BONUS: From Sketch to Framed Artwork: In this bonus lesson, I will show you how I go from all my practice sheets to the finished artwork, like to the framed one. I will let you listen to my thoughts and just walk you through my process. I have this old frame at home that I want to use. I took the measurements of the mat and made myself a few finder so that I don't get fingerprints or anything on the mat. Let's just go ahead. This is a scribble that I did during my life class. I think as a whole, it's not super interesting. I like this part, but this part is not very interesting. The goal wasn't like to create something finished, but to create something interesting. Now I could go ahead and look at it With my view, I can see interesting compositions popping up. For example, I like that there is this big shape and there are these fine lines. It's very open, but on this side it goes over the edge. You feel that there is something more. This makes an image very interesting. Let's take a look at another one, this collage piece work example. Let's see, this is a little bit shiny, probably. This wouldn't be a good example. Yeah. Would focus here like this wouldn't be super interesting to me because we have all these shapes that are basically the same size. I would find this a little bit interesting, like having this golden thing on the bottom. And then having this pattern, this repetitive pattern here. And also this movement through the whole piece. It has this diagonal composition. I don't know if there's anything in there. Let's see, it doesn't jump anything at me right now. I don't like this piece a lot, but not as a whole. I think here it's not really fine. It really needs to be cropped. I think it would look a lot better. But in this case, I wouldn't want to have this with a white mat, at least not behind it. Maybe on top I would cut it, but then put it on top of the mat. This will not go into the closer consideration. I really love this one, but again, it's not super exciting. For me, it's like it would be a very symmetrical composition obviously. Yeah, I don't like that too much, but it could work for something else, and I really love that page. But when we have a fixed size, we want to find something that really works well. This has a lot of movement, a lot of energy going on. See if it works better. This way, way, way. There's just a lot of things going on for me right now. It's a little bit too much, it's a little bit too repetitive. There's this arch again and again, It can create rhythm, but it's really a little bit too much all over the place. For me, this one is too small. Let's have a little at this one that could be interesting. But again, for this size, it's too much. There is too much of the same thing. Like it's very pattern. Yeah. You can also turn to the side. When I have something blue at the bottom, I would. Love to have it again repeated somewhere else that you can use the color to guide the eye around. But here I have the blue chest at the bottom. That doesn't work for me so well. It would work better like that way, but then I would want to have something red here. Again, this is really not the right size ratio for this piece here, I have a larger one that I know I've before done a section with a square that very well, so I don't think I will cut it up. Basically what we have as a choice is now this one, which is pretty dark, but it would look nice in this frame. This one, honestly, although I have a little bit of white here, which makes this fit better to the white mat, I think surprisingly I didn't expect that I like this one the best. It's very calm, it's reduced. And I really love that. That's the section that I want to use for my final piece. Now, if I had, if you find that it would be a little bit larger I could use to trace it. In this case, I haven't. I really want to just take a look at the image. I don't need like to cut it very exactly. I just want to have enough overlap. I don't want to cut it up completely. It's also not necessary for the frame because there is some room around now, I need my cutting math. Now, let's just cut this up a little bit. I will use the grid and just align it here on the grid and cut through it. I start to like this, it's lying there. Might do this. After all, you haven't tried this section because now I have big shape here. If you don't consider those separate ones, you have one big shape or medium. And here you have a small, it's something that I like to use a in my art. Now we're doing this one, I didn't expect this loose sheets to be like framed ever, but those are sometimes the best ones because they are so spontaneous. Now, I think I'm just going to try moving this around a little bit, but what I'm not doing is having something exactly at the edge of something like here. The shape really touches the frame. You would want to go out of the frame, but then in this case we would have line here which would also draw the eye immensively. We don't want that, we want to stay inside the frame also. This is a great contrast to have something that doesn't go over the edge, and here we have things that go over the edge. I also want to be a little bit higher with this. I think I'm fine. I don't want to move it around anymore. I will get some washing tape and here it to the frame. Then I'll clean the frame. So now we can put it inside the frame and take a look at how looks, and it looks really nice. This would be a second option that I also like after all, but for now, I really love this one. Here we've got the final piece. I think it's really minimal and really lovely to look at. It was just a sketch, it was very loose and spontaneous. And look at how nice it looks.