Principles of Design By Stephen Chmilar Have you ever looked at a picture you like and wondered why you like it? Have you ever wanted to make your art more dramatic and eye catching? Well this tutorial will help you! Ok let’s start off: Contrast Like it or not, we live in a world full of contrast. They’re differences between tall and short, black and white, young and old, female and male, living and dead, organized and chaos, hard and soft, red and green, sky and ground, organic and geometric, good and evil and so on. Here’s a bare bones example of contrast:
Picture 1
In Picture one we can clearly see that the black circle is contrasted to the white square canvas. So we have 2 contrasts here: big and small, black and white.
Now let’s look at a picture example:
Picture 2 In Picture 2 we can see a contrast between the small people and trees compared to the tall skyscrapers. Next we will look at Balance. There are two types of balance: Symmetrical and Asymmetrical balance. Symmetrical means that the balance on either side is close to perfect. Most buildings are Symmetrically Balanced, look at the design of a Skyscraper and you’ll see that it’s pretty even all the way up. Example of a Symmetrically Balanced model:
Picture 3
The model in picture 3 is perfectly balanced on each side. However, if you go look at yourself in the mirror or look at other people, they are infact Asymmetrically Balanced. Asymmetrical means that the balance is off. Here’s an example:
Picture 4 In Picture 4 we see that the cat’s fur is not even on her face. She has much more black fur on her left side of her face. Another example would be my face, it has a scar on the right cheek and my mole pattern is different on either side of my face. Most organic things are asymmetrical. Faces aren’t the only kind of balance out there. There are also balances between: -Warm and Cold colours -Strong and Dull colours -Black and White -Earth and Sky -Subject and Background -Right and Left -Top and Bottom Our next Principle of Design is Scale and Proportion. People who have taken Life Drawing know all about these two. Scale is the size of an object compared to other objects in a piece. And Proportion is the size of a part of an object compared to the rest of the object.
For example: (next page, did you know that the buildings, people and cars in picture 2 were made out of Lego?)
Picture 5 In picture 5 we can clearly see that the carrot in the picture is medium sized and is out of proportion. My Mom grew some pretty weird carrots. Scale also works very well with contrast. If we put a small circle next to a big circle we see:
Picture 6 In picture 6 we see that the big Circle appears to be a lot bigger then the small circle.
Next we’ll look at Repetition and Rhythm.
Sounds a little musical doesn’t it? Well there are a lot of patterns out there and we often don’t see it. For an example:
Picture 7 Here we can see a clear repeating pattern and rhythm of the chairs and shadows. Rhythm is a little harder to show in a visual form, it comes to play when you do a redo certain aspects with some variation. For an example in Picture 7, the chairs are all not completely align and there’s a gap down the line and there’s some ever so slight lines near the top left hand of the picture.
Next is Unity and Variety. You should know that Unity is the togetherness feel that things belong together and that Variety is the spice of life (just don’t go saying that every day). Variety is change. In picture 7 we saw a lot of Unity in the picture thanks to the black and white film production to help show the white chairs, shadows and grad gown. Too much unity can be too boring and too much variety can cause a headache because we’d be looking at chaos. But some pieces are built on chaos… Anyway, here’s another example:
(Next page)
Picture 7 In Picture 7 we see that the picture is held together thanks to a unity of shapes, all the leaves belong together. The leaves are not all the same, some are smaller, some are crinkled up, some have more snow on them, some are different colours, thus producing variety, as well as the colour differences between orange and green. An example of contrast.
Now we’re going to tie all these things together with our next 3 Elements, first we’ll take on Directional Forces. Go back and look at pictures 2 and 7 and see where your eyes guide you.
Now look at these edited versions of those two pictures on the next page.
Picture 8
Picture 9 In picture 8 picture 9 we can clearly see the natural directional forces that move our eyes. In picture 8 we can see that the lines are directing us to the organic forest at the end of the street and away from the skeleton on top of one of the roofs. In picture 9 we can see that the lines help focus on the young lady in the picture and she becomes the subject of our next Principle of Design: Emphasis
Emphasis or Focal Point is to help the viewer to focus in what the main subject of the piece is. Another example would be a yellow sun in a black and white piece. But of course we hardly place the main focal point right smack in the middle of the frame, canvas or medium. It’s always best to have a character slightly off center. Here we bring in the Rule of Thirds. The Rule of Third states that one should divide the picture into 9 parts, and the main subject should go in where the lines interact, example of the guide:
Picture 10 In picture 10 we can see that the red circles are where our subject should be, let’s see if this translates to a different picture:
Picture 11 As you can see, the main focal point in picture 7, 9 and 11 is the young woman’s face, with her body on the one of the rule of third’s lines. She is off center creating With the Rule of Thirds helping, the subject has become our focal point and the top right hand of the picture has become our last Principle, Subordination. We make it blend into the scene so it doesn’t cast much attention, much like the skeleton in picture 2 or:
Picture 12
The marshmallow man on the bottom left hand side. It was close to Halloween at Lego Land. You wouldn’t have seen him if I hadn’t pointed him out.
So let’s recap, the Principles of Design are: -Contrast -Balance -Scale and Proportion -Repetition and Rhythm -Unity and Variety -Directional Forces -Emphasis (Focal Point) and Subordination Remember to observe these and practice these as you continue to do your art. Now that you are aware of these Principles and Elements you’ll be able to create better work and find out why you like other pieces more.
Links: http://schmilar.blogspot.com - my blog http://www.digimill.net - the host of this tutorial and several others, as well as news and interviews.
All images by Stephen Chmilar.
