Conspicuously Absent - Composing a Still Life
Landlocked: Still Life with Sushi, acrylic on canvas, 8 x 8 inches, 2011 by Sarah Atlee. Some rights reserved.
Composition is about choices
When composing an image, the artists chooses where each element is placed in order to produce certain effects. The desired effect could be motion, tension, calm, strength, quiet, noise, and so on.
Lately I'm revisiting Richard Diebenkorn's Ocean Park paintings and studying his compositions. I'm wild about the way he pushes those divisions of space almost to the edges of the canvas in a conscious step away from the traditional Western pyramid. As my former painting teacher Martin Facey (himself a student of Diebenkorn's) would say, the middle of this painting is full of "nothing," as in no thing.
Painting no thing
In exploring still life painting, I find that composition is queen. A solid composition is complemented, not overshadowed, by color and paint handling. I enjoy playing on the notion that the most important business of a painting happens in the middle.
For Landlocked, above, I wanted to try pushing all the action to the first half of the hour, so to speak. I frequently employ the circle-within-a-square layout, and I like how the oddish placement of the sushi plays against the static underpinnings of the image.
My original photos of these leftovers included a teacup with soy sauce in it, a very dark element dominating the upper left quadrant of the composition. I decided against including it in the painting, choosing instead to fill that half of the plate with no thing. I also changed the color of the plate from green to a more neutral grey to turn its personality down a few notches, letting the sushi pop (better than putting it in the frying pan, no?).
Landlocked was created for the 2012 Small Works exhibit at JRB Art Gallery at the Elms.
Found on Flickr: Visual Diaries
The Visual Diaries are tools I create to capture my aesthetic for a particular moment. They're collections of my favorite Flickr images each month or so. See all of them here.
Hemphill-Co-safe-passage, by Flickr user Stateart1. Click image to view on Flickr.
This is from my October Visual Diary, The Finding Place. Hemphill County, Texas, is where my mother's family has lived for the past several generations.
See what else I've found on Flickr.
Feeling Stumped?
Here are some tools that can help spur your creativity. Don't try to execute every idea all at once -- pick a link at random and follow it. The Brainstormer (Read a history of The Brainsormer here.)
Directors Bureau Idea Generator
Michael Nobbs' 75 ways to Draw More and Draw Your Life
A methodology for creating new ideas (written by professional illustrator Nate Williams)
An extensive list of ideation tools
Keith Haring knew that anything worth drawing once was worth drawing a hundred times.
I like to go to movies and draw in the dark. And I love love love blind gesture drawing.
Join the BookMooch Journal Project (or just browse their blog or their Flickr pool) or 1001 Journals
Participate in the quarterly Worldwide Sketch Crawl Day.
Illustration Friday suggests a new topic once a week!
Following are some idea-generation links oriented toward writers, but they could just as easily apply to image-makers.
No one cares what you had for lunch.
Idea Generator Blog Writing Prompts
Googobs of Creative Writing Prompts
Now rock out with your socks out.
Related Posts How (and Why) to Title Your Work (Includes some prompts to help you create interesting titles.) Project Idea: Object Sketchbook
Found on Flickr: Visual Diary, November & December 2009
Curious Photo from the George Eastman House collection on Flickr Commons. Click image to view source.
Visual Diary, November 2009: Heads Up
The Virtue Series: Wisdom, graphite and pastel on paper, 2002 by Scott Brooks. Click image to view source. (Scott G. Brooks' website here.)
Visual Diary, December 2009: Minty Fresh
See what else I've Found on Flickr.
Found on Flickr: Visual Diary, October 2009
my moleskine / molescu, photograph by Flickr user Andrea Posada. Click image to view source.
These are my favorite Flickr photos from the last month. Shots from the annual Ghouls Gone Wild Parade make this the semi-Halloween edition. (See plenty more ghouls here.)
Flickr Gallery: Visual Diary, October 2009.
See what else I've Found on Flickr.