It All Boils Down to Composition

Buoy 5 - 6"x6" oil on canvas board (finished on the left, value under painting on the right)

What's the most important thing to do well when creating a painting or an art photograph? Some people will say color, some will say drawing, some will say mood, and some subject matter. All those things are important, but what really matters most is composition.

Buoy 7 - 6"x6" oil on canvas board (finished on the left, value under painting on the right)

What is composition? It's not just a drawing. The shapes that are created and how dark or light they are (value in art speak) is what's important. I like to think of the composition as the arrangement and value of interlocking shapes on the canvas (or paper). This works for both representational and abstract art. In representational art, the composition is with the painter throughout the process. That's not required in abstract painting though it does have to appear at some point, even in intuitive abstract painting.

Churchy at Low Tide - 8"x8" oil on canvas board (finished right, value under painting on the left)

In landscape painting, we often create what we call a value under painting, or value roadmap to help us keep the composition in mind as we paint. It's also common to create several initial value sketches to choose the most compelling composition. These value sketches can take the place of the value under painting when time is of the essence, as it usually is in plein air painting.

Winslow Park - 6"x6" oil on canvas board (value sketch left, finished painting right)

Above, I used makers to create the different values, usually 3 to 5 values are needed.

Near Rasteau - 8"x8" oil on canvas board (value sketch left, finished painting right)

In this example I used a pen and hatching to create the different values. It's also common to use a soft pencil to create a value sketch, often called a thumbnail sketch to emphasize that detail is not the most important thing. I may have gone a bit far that direction on this last one!

If you want to try this for yourself, take a photo of a painting and turn it black and white on your phone. It will be easier to see the composition that way than when it's in color.