Transcripts
1. Introduction: I used to have a teacher, in art school, saying how you arrange your objects and subjects can really transform the quality of your final work. Then I want to show you why that is. Hi, I'm Lisk Feng. I'm a illustrator, originally from China and now living in New York. You might have seen my work in New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Journal, and many other newspapers and magazines. I also did children's books with different publishers and I do book covers too. Today we're going to focus on composition practice. My talk is mainly about how you practice composition and how you use your own logic to play with and curate your objects. I will be using my iPad to show you different compositions of objects and then eventually draw my piece. I will not probably going to finish the piece anyway, but I will just show you some examples, and how I use the practice and then put it into my own very narrative, imaginary illustration composition as well. You don't need to have an iPad. You just have a paper or have anything in front of you. Just follow along, then it will be quite easy today. After you taking this class, I wish you can be more confident with your composition. That's really, really important. Just as you know, this class was recorded live and I was answering questions while I was drawing. Let's start drawing.
2. Tips for Good Composition: Hi, I'm Becca. I'm a content producer here at Skillshare and I'll be your host for today's session with Lisk. So without further ado, over to you, Lisk. Hi, my name is Lisk Feng. I'm an illustrator originally from China and came to the US since 2012. So it's been a while. I was in Baltimore for two years, and I moved to New York after 2014, and now a New Yorker. Today, we're going to focus on composition practice in illustration. I know this sounds a little bit big because composition can relate it to lots of things. But I feel like for beginners or just like logic-based, I want to show you some of my own tips for you to figure out or practice composition because this is quite difficult to get into sometimes and getting improved. Also, I want to use composition to change your work in the future. I hope it will be a little bit teeny-tiny help for you. I want to show you this. This is some tips for you, guys. One, pick objects. Before picking out objects, you have to have a imagination. This is a project not used for practicing rendering. This is a project you use to practice the whole picture, the composition. It doesn't matter how good you draw. Sometimes, it's just like rendering, just requires time and practice. But this one, I give you some new ideas. For example, before you pick objects, think about the color. Even if it's just a very boring cup or, a mug, or things on your table. What kind of color you want to draw this mug? Apple is not always red. Apple can be orange or purple in your drawing. First of all, you want to think about the mood, like what kind of atmosphere you want to show in this little drawing, so that you pick the right object based on the color you choose or the atmosphere you choose. For example, I want to draw yellow pictures today. I feel very [inaudible]. I want gold, I want orange color. That's why I put a lot of the yellow jar from the '60s I collect from Japan. These little cans are perfect yellow and then afterwards, when you draw it, this big chunk of yellow will be your main center color palette. Another tip for you to choose color palette is the largest size in your composition. That big chunk of color will be your theme color normally. For example, you have a tablecloth that's blue. Your drawing will be blue mostly, because your tablecloth is blue. If your room, your floor is black, your room will be like a black and white style maybe. The largest size in your composition is really important. That's the color in your mind, first choice. Then you pick out the object that can stand out from the environment. The second point is, put them in drawing, well-curated before you start drawing. You don't just sit down and then practice your composition by looking at your messy table with nothing on it or a lot of this pencils over there. You want to put them together first and then you start drawing them. That will raise your quality of your piece immediately. It's just like writing a children's book. Composition is the story. The drawing skills are the illustrator. If the story is not good enough, your drawing will not be good enough. Composition is that important and then sometimes, if you finish it, it's really difficult to change. Sketching is really important. You can do multiple sketches on one object by changing to different directions or just using your phone. It's really easy, that's why I show you the example. Take photos on different angle and put this candle here, put this mug there, put this flower there, and then play with the composition. You will see the difference when you look at the photos. If there is one photo you feel like this is right, and that's it. Then the third one, pick a style and be confident. After the composition is done then we can go to how we draw. That's why when I teach editorial illustrations or more like high level illustration courses for grad students or undergrad students, I always tell them, it doesn't matter how you draw first. It always matters what you draw first. What you draw as very important, way important than how you draw. We deal with what you draw first and then we go to the next step. Dealing with the style, what kind of brush you use, what kind of software you use? Do you use watercolor? Do you use charcoals? It's going to be very different for everyone. It's all about the preference.
3. Setting Up a Drawing Guide: Before we get started, I want to show you how to set up the drawing guide I like to use on the iPad. I mostly use ProCreate and Fresco. The reason I use a lot of Fresco because I can import things from my Photoshop, from computer product line and I can get all the layers and stuff exactly the same on iPad so I can sit in couch and draw. But ProCreate is another software I use a lot, especially for sketching. The reason why, there are some functions that I feel are really helpful and this is super unique as well. I will show you that first and I will tell you why. First of all, if you have an iPad, you'll able to find a thing called Canvas. Canvas, you will see a drawing guide on the third row. If you turn it off, the guidelines will be gone. If you turn it on, it will be there. You can adjust whatever you'd like to do. For example, I'm doing the guideline first. This is a 2-D grid, and then you can do pattern-ish, you can do prospective, and you need to set your own points. For the 2-D grids, I think today we're going to mainly use the 2D grid as a guideline. First, you can set it up if you have iPad with you, that would be nice. If you don't have iPad on the paper, it's fine, but you can use this method later. First of all, the opacity is transparency. Then the thickness is like this. Grid size, you can have as many as you want or very big. I normally give it a bigger size because you don't need to have so many things to bother you you from sketch. Now I click done, it will not include anything you draw.
4. Fixing a Bad Composition: Next, let's talk through a few ways you can fix a composition that isn't quite there, and then this composition is actually not [inaudible]. I put it here as a bad example for you, but I will tell you how to improve it. First of all, this is a photo of my table, and then we see a teapot, we see certain objects. It's a little bit too shifted to the right, so you can see even a little bit of the couch there. When you're doing live drawings, you don't have to draw everything you see, so in my opinion, the couch can be there, but we definitely need to have something at the front. It will be this area, so this area feel very empty, and plus, drawing a crowded group will actually ask a lot of balance in your composition. For the guidelines, the good thing is, so we see this point, we see this bottle. It's on the right side, a little bit on the right side, so that's why I want to add something over here so that it has a balance. This is just easy for you to analyze your sketch. When you take photo, you will see some guidelines in your camera and then that's the same thing. It's just a guideline for you to put your key elements in the center and then after you find the center, you find the balance, and then that will be fine. What I will do is, I will probably just put a book over here, then when you draw the sketch, the composition itself is already better than no book. This is just a really short introduction for you here and then I will show you some of my photos.
5. Composition Examples: Photographs: Now, let's look at a bunch of examples of different compositions. I want to show you some of my daily photos. The reason I used photo is taking photos are one of the best and easiest and fastest way to practice composition. As you can see, this photo is not very bad, but I want to have a centerpiece, but the centerpiece is not finished. For example, the flower on the top is cut, the bottle on the bottom is cut. What I will do is I will probably tilt my camera a little bit and step a little further, and I will have the full bottle. This is another example I did. I think it's way better than the first option. So create your objects first, if you want to draw something in your daily life. That will help you a lot for your drawing itself. Then also, another example is I tried to find a lot of balance in my photos as well. Even if it's just like a really, really simple photo with some bread and a cup, it will require some technique to make it balance. I also did a lot of practice with toys too. If you just have one object, how are you going to put it and not boring? I normally find the center, little toys, they could be on the sides, but also it can be very easy to target when the background is more repetitive, just like stones and trees, there are not many centered objects there, so that when you put your objects over there, this object automatically become the center. If you think about drawing nature with a character, that's how you put it. I also did some photo examples for you to see. I took some bad ones, some good ones, and then one of the photo will be our practice today. This photo is all right. The bottle is finished, but the flower is a little bit cut. But I think the bottle itself is the center at this moment, and this is where we put photo now. Because you can see at least one finished flower, and the finished teapot, and then the notebook fulfilled this part of the emptiness. You find it centered but not boring. You have things decorated next to a center area. This is another photo I attempted to take to just experiment different perspective on objects, and this is definitely too low, and this is very close. This is also an example of that. It's a bad photo, it's a boring photo because the flower is on the left side. It's finished but it's just behind the teapot, and the teapot is not finished. The glass bottle is not complete as well because you can't see any flowers. You feel like this is a weird composition at this moment. This is slightly better. If I do some crop, this will be a useful photo as well, and this one. After I put everything on my table and then I took some photos to practice, and then I will start to draw in front of those objects. Sometimes, what you see, you don't have to draw everything out; even the perspective, it can be off. As long as you created the objects well, it will be a really nice little sketch for you.
6. Composition Examples: Sketches: I also want to show you some of my illustration sketches. This is a sketch I did for Apple. When they asked me to do elements, they want me to separate all the objects in different layers. So that means I have to pre-arrange everything ahead of time by doing a finished sketch first and then draw things one by one. When you draw things one by one, you started with objects, it will be very difficult to manage the whole picture. So sketching ahead of time is quite important as it is. You can arrange things afterwards. I tend to put the character here, the center point, so that other things around it will become a harmony. Over here as well. Sometimes I do two focus points. This sketch, the character is definitely one important point but another thing is, I want to show our fishes. There are gigantic fishes in the center area of this whole piece so that you see the character. If I got rid of all the fishes, the character itself will be like this is all composition. But with the fish in the center, it become a harmony, a balance. This one too, this is a very difficult composition for a lot of people, but I really like to use this as a good example for balance. On the left top corner, you have this character running. But on the right side, you have a gigantic part of abstract shapes so that it feel really powerful just because the composition itself plays so well. Then this one too. This one is a super, super safe example. The character is very centered and then the dog is standing next to it. But you don't see the dog take over things. Then there are small trees, small plants around it. This one too. This one is interesting example here. This one is for Elle China's cover. When I did brainstorming, I never thought of the size first. I will try to capture all my imaginations at once and then try to adjust the composition. I want to show you the final piece of this. It's very different. One is vertical, one is horizontal. What I did is I actually use this girl, use this main character and then pull that to the right a little bit. I also use a gigantic chunk of animals to make it balanced. By tilting the floor a little bit, it make even more interesting and balanced. It's not super boring, like stable composition, but it's balanced. You don't feel like it's two on the side or it's not finished. Here are some of my examples I show you. Another really quick practice I did was gallery. I found gallery very interesting because all the pictures, all the drawings, they hand perfectly. You don't see a lot of fall, loss. They are perfect like perspective. What I did is if I draw gallery, it's a really opportunity to practice composition as well. You can design your own gallery. You can design this very beautiful perfect space and have close up sculptures at the corner. Then on the right side, you also can see some bigger ones and then there is a center, there's a little character, and then we want the character. You have another layer and another layer. Gallery idea is very, very good for practice your space instinct for arranging things because everything will be very perfect at first. After you manage to practice this, it's a good level to draw nature and more complicated shapes. This is another practice I did. This is another one. The character is over here. Then you see, because the character is looking at the center of the gigantic sculptures, so this gave this piece a balanced composition. Here are some of my examples.
7. Draw Along: Initial Sketch: Now let's start sketching out our composition. So this photo is the photo I want to show you how I do it and then how I draw sketches based on this, and then how I finalize a sketch. I don't think we have enough time to finish it. So it's mostly I talk and draw at the same time. So if you want to practice using the same photo I took, you can do it as well. So first of all, I want to say when you have the composition and then the photo or objects ready, it didn't matter really for the perspective. The reason I want to tell you to be confident is even if the perspective is not correct or you don't draw precisely, it did not matter. As long as you use the same consistent style to finish this illustration it will be really fun. You will grow out of this every time. So what I like to do always is I tend to find like HB or pencil, brush if you have a iPad, and then I open another layer. Normally underneath it, but I don't use the photo on the iPad as well. I just want to show you from left side to right side, the comparison. So first of all, let's see. You want to draw the bottle, right? So if I decide the bottle and the teapot will be the centerpiece, then I will start draw the centerpiece first. I will make the teapot in the center if I wanted to. It will be different from the photo, but you should be confident it's okay. First of all, this is your own photo. No one will judge you. Then second, this is going to help you to do more practice without photo. Let's just draw this teapot. What I like to do is I sketch it really fast, but today I'm going to slow down a little better for you to see it. So when I do sketch, I don't show a lot of the skills. I just do quick line works. Then I don't really care about the perspective because I can do it right, but I don't want to, because I want to show a childish style of objects, with Romm's perspective. That's my purpose, right? Sometimes I want to do that, so just do that. Remember, make every changes consistency. For example, if you want to make all the bottle lines straight, make all the bottle lines straight will be nicer. Here the bottle. It's not the final. It's just like a sketch before the final. So after I draw the bottle here the placement is mostly go surrounded by the centerpiece. So always find this centerpiece for your illustration first. Then I want to play with a very childish perspective, for example. So I will probably draw it like this. Not accurate but I like it. Always tell yourself yeah, I like it, I like what I see. You might find inner peace when you draw instead of like stressful oh, I can't draw anything, I'm not precise enough. Yeah, here is a very weird teapot set. Then I want everything more rounder. So it will be like this. I don't really care about the size as well because I can change it afterwards. I sometimes like to draw the objects I like better bigger. So I'm just going to do it very freely. See, what I did is the bottle and the teapot is a little bit more centered than my photo because I want that. So you can do whatever you change to change it. Then here are some flowers, so I will do the details later, just like put it there. Then the water inside the perspective will be consistent because I decided to use all the top surface round and then the bottom surface kind of like flat. So it's going to be everything. Because we don't see a lot of flowers here because they're almost dead. I took this photo too late. They're about to finish their short life. So I will probably add more flowers over here, or just draw some dead flowers a little bit more than I think, and try to make them a little bit more decorative. I know if you see it, I will say it as the photo is kind of like a guideline for you to draw objects. You don't have to follow everything you see. But it's just you put things there based on this photo and then you can do whatever changes you like. If you want to draw more flowers or round flowers, it doesn't matter. Then as I mentioned, consistency, style-wise consistency. So if I want to draw the table surface, I will do it rounder than usual. Then I want to finish the tabletop. So like this. Let's deal with the cans. The cans is little bit difficult because I want to make it crowded so that we can practice a little better. Here is another flower. Just put it there. Then here's the cans. When I do further object, sometimes my line works are going to be less connected to the front so that I can easily separate the front and then back. That's how I deal with line works. Also, I highly recommend you to start with line works first when you practice composition. Then here is another. Then another and another. I decided to let it out of the composition. I don't want to draw the right corner we see like this, like this object. I don't want to show it in my illustration, so I got rid of it. Another wooden container I put it here. Because we have less accurate perspective, so I will just put this wooden tray very straight. Then here is the notebook. So the notebook is outside of the illustration itself, but I decided to make the tray bigger and then the notebook slightly smaller. Then some pens. I will get rid of the background completely this time because I think the object itself is already very crowded and busy. So let's make it nothing. Then I will do like a tablecloth thing here. Again, because I decide to use a less accurate perspective so the cross will not be as the photo too, it will be like straightforward. You can definitely experiment your own style on this by changing the photo, not like drawing whatever you see. It's good for your brain too. When you draw, you don't need to think like a robot. You can sometimes play with your own style and line works to find new ways to go for other works. Here is my sketch. I know it looks a little bit to the right because we don't have the edge for the paper. So I will say probably like this. Then afterwards, when you look at it, you feel like, oh, it's probably too crowded, right? So what I will do is I adjust it after I finish the center because the objects on the table, we already arranged it well, so right now you can shift the whole thing a little bit when you want to. I will make them slightly smaller and up and probably in the center a little bit. You have all the main objects finished, the placeholder, and then you can just quickly make small adjustments. Then here is our sketch.
8. Draw Along: Final Line Work: Finally, let's go back over this with final line work. I normally reduce the opacity to maybe like 30 percent. When you open a new layer on top of this layer, so click "Layer", you will have a new layer on top of it. Then, choose another brush you want to go for the final. I will probably still use the pencil. I think it's really nice. What kind of color? Let's use very basic black. The reason I really, really enjoy Procreate's pencil brush, first of all, it's really easy to sketch, and then, another point is when you tilt your brush, like this texture is really easy to use as well. If you want to get a quick shade, you just tilt your brush, which I think it's really realistic and very fun to use. I would just zoom in a lot, zooming as much as you can when you draw finals on digital because you don't know how detailed you can get. Sometimes, you think you've finished it, but it's not finished. Zoom in big enough, and then look at things closely. That's why I always recommend my friends to get the largest size. I've had instead of the tiny one, because the tiny one, you can't see it that big. So bigger pictures can help you dig into more details. But it's all based on your budget though. If so small you can still zoom in very big, but it's just difficult to see more pictures. If you have enough budget, if you want to invest on iPad, I highly recommend you get the largest one, or at least the second size one. Don't get smaller, just go for the biggest one, the new one. This size will be a game changer because it's pretty similar to the Cintiq 13 HD, so it's like smallest Cintiq you can get, it's the same size as iPad. It's quite a doable size. Let's do this. So black, I changed my mind a little bit, but I think for today's hour time, I'm only going to use my work because I really like some colors, but I don't think we have enough time to show everything. When any line works, I don't look at the reference a lot. I think about how I show off my line works more. First of all, I think I want to have the lighting in the center of all the objects. So the shadows will be on the two sides. I will do this because I'm right handed, so I would go upside down most of the time. Then, I will use tiny line works. I decided to use a wiggle style line works because this is what I used to use a lot. Then I start to play with style, and every time I play with style, I don't look at the reference a lot. I will look at the reference when I'm coloring things sometimes, if I needed to. It looks a little bit different, but I don't really mind. I'll just tilt down my brush again and then do some shadow. Another thing I'd like you to draw without moving your hand, only the fingers, which I think it's quite easy. As I said, balanced. Even black and white, we need to have a balance. See like the bottom part is too dark a little bit, so I will add more shade on the teapot as well. It's so easy to use this brush, I like it. Then, I will do the flower, look at the reference a little bit. I always draw water in my illustration because they already have details themselves. People find soft objects very difficult to draw, but I think once you look at them a lot, you will have your own style of showing water. For example, when I think about style right now, what I did is I tried to use a lot of shades on both sides and also wiggly lines with the perspective, straight and a little bit like the powder-ish. Then, when I do the shades, some area don't touch the line works, some darks. I'm going to use this rule as the whole thing for particularly this piece. You can change it next time. But for each single individual piece, you will have a consistent thing to practice every time. I think it's going to be a really good help for you to start developing your own style even without reference. The flower pot, I would just do a little bit rough because we run out of time. I'm just doing it my own way, I don't look at the reference anymore for the flowers, they're too complicated. Good. Flower is almost there, and then, draw another flower first. If I'm in a rush, I will do the shadings and then more details later. Behind these front objects, I decide to not touch the line so that the bottle is a little bit separated from the front objects. I don't use this all the time, but today, I decided to do this in this illustration. You can develop your own rules. It could be really, really interesting and very creative. Make drawing fun. Liz, do you always start with black and white or do you sometimes go straight to color? Straight to color. Sometimes it's run out of time, sometimes, I just feel the color first. Today, like this sketch, I want to play with black and white a little bit because first of all, we don't have a lot of time, second, I really enjoy black and white. They never bored me. I think they have multiple potentials. That's why I really recommend people who want to practice style start with line work, then go to color because I think play with color black is slightly difficult in a way because you need more textures than just line works. Line works, you can just use your grid, then it will be different already. You use a pencil, it will be different, you use a pen, it will be different, so it's time saving. I think it will give you a lot of efficiency to practice line works and also composition or other skills as well. But in my opinion, my drawings, I always care really hard about this word, balance. No matter the color, the black and white relationship, negative shape, positive shape, because we didn't get the chance to get into the shape relationship, it's a whole another new thing we need to have another class then. For example, if I look at it, I will see like, oh, this black part is a little bit too dark, so I will redo it in a lighter style so that it's not taking over the centerpiece of your illustration. Pretty much, let me do a metaphor. Your centerpiece is your master, and then the objects around your centerpiece is the servant, they serve the centerpiece of your composition. Your centerpiece, a lot of the times, they're not be literally centered, but it's just like the most important thing you want to show in your drawings. I think I'm almost there.
9. Q&A: Now, let's open it up to some questions from students in the audience. You typically use the standard Procreate or Fresco brushes, or you use more customized packs and things like that. I don't really care about brushes sometimes, so I will just use the brushes they have, but I think it's a good idea to get more. I'm just being lazy. But if I wanted to, I can always import more brushes. I just use Procreate mainly for sketching, so their pencil brush is amazing. They're super great, I highly recommend. I think it's, you can't be that. When I use Procreate for final, sometimes I find it slightly difficult to go to super details, so I will jump between computer and Procreate. If I use Fresco, it's the same thing, I will just use half my time on Fresco for most of the things. If I feel lazy, I want to have a coffee, I will just do though, and then I walk back to my computer, I drop to my computer or if I use flashcards it's okay. I just save it. It's on the Cloud so that when you open Photoshop, it's already on your computer, you don't have to do anything. I think these tools are enough for me. If you have more budget, you can get the Astropath by which it will connect your iPad with your computer, just like us in peak. They can join Facile tablet. How does your vision for the composition factor into your decisions about lighting and color or other basic major design choices that you're making or you're actually drawing? I don't think both of them together though. Like I always think the composition is a thing and then lighting and coloring is another thing. I consider competition, we're ahead of time, and then I got rid of it, and then I just watch a TV drama while I do with the rendering and lettering and coloring. It's more fun to render things. It's enjoyable, why? Every time you render things it's addictive and you don't think much, you're just eat snacks or smoke a cigarette or do whatever you want, you can still rendering without thinking, but when I think about the composition, the ideas, that's straight ahead like a brainstorming, so I want to get rid of part first and then I will get into other parts. I do consider it though. Like sometimes I do consider because I'm drawing narratively, but if you're asking about like planning ahead on the objects you choose to draw drawings like this, I do care, but it's all about balance. For example, if I have a lot of yellow then I will put some white or more grayish colors to go with it so that the yellow color will be popped. If you drop a like a white didn't matter, but if you draw like color, you have to plan ahead for real. Do you have any books that you like to recommend if students are looking to learn more about the fundamentals of illustration like composition, color, lighting? That's a tricky question because I myself I don't really recommend reading educational books for illustrations. On the other hand, I want you to read, for example, more children's book for example, and look at more art. Sometimes looking at oil paintings and sculptures and other things so that you learn better things from the theory itself. I don't really think there are good textbook for illustrations on this market, even like illustration history books aren't many, so that way I feel like if you started with one illustrator, you really like, and then you go and look for similar artist, and then you look more and you look more and you learn more. That's I think the best solution for now. Also another suggestion is, don't stop drawing. This sounds really cliche, but it's really useful tip. Some of my students ask me, "How can I improve?" I say, keep practicing and drawing every day, even if you run out of ideas, you just do something on the paper or call your partner and then do it on the paper." With sometimes even do them without thinking, and then it will help you to get more ideas in a row. Another tip is in my opinion, I think fundamental skills, for example, realistic drawing practice is quite necessary. You can't really like skip this step. If you have a requirement or if you really need to improve something, you can't figure it out ourselves, find a teacher or find a group, that a group of people who want to improve with you together and then find some live drawing classes online or do yourself. Just like, for example, do it with your friends together, go to a forest and draw some flowers, draw some watercolor. I always believe that if you draw as much as you can, you will improve skill-wise and logic-wise. In my opinion just keep drawing, you will get something good out of it. Just have fun, be happy, and have fun.
10. Final Thoughts: Thank you for joining the class today. Hope you gain something from the class. I think this is a good way to appreciate the objects you own and then draw happily. This is also a really good practice for your line works and your competitions. I hope you enjoy, just enjoy drawing. The reason I also do a lot of objects photo taking is because it's COVID, I can't really go outside a lot. I tend to practice on my table, that's the easiest way to do. I'd really just want you to have fun at home and be happy to draw a little bit things for yourself. Remember to be happy first. Be happy and then be positive. Just happy drawing. I really, really want to see your drawing. If you have anything you want to share, just upload your work to the project gallery. It will be really, really nice. I have a class about Adobe Fresco and coloring. If you're interested, please check my Skillshare profile. Bye.
Lisk Feng, Adobe Fresco Teacher & Illustrator
