I’ve updated some new diagrams and info in my free access (for now) Guide to Composition page. This is content I’ve been enjoying sharing this with my Mastrius Mentorship Group (places still available) and helping them work through the activities in the online sessions. This allows clarification and constructive critiques.
Access the new notes and illustrations for free here.
(If you’re not already a free or paid member, you’ll just need to make a free account)
New In-person Composition Course Starts in October!
Following on from my experiences with mentoring composition for Mastrius.com and compiling my notes and diagrams into the guide mentioned above, I've decided to offer an in-person short course on figurative composition. Over 5 Saturdays we will explore traditional design principles as they relate to line, tone and colour, as well as important visual phenomena such as light, atmosphere, space and even a sense of implied time. We'll look at the some of the techniques I've found most useful for arranging and executing figurative compositions, both physical and digital. We'll then work from the life model to apply these concepts and skills to making a figurative composition, in several different distinct modes: Narrative (traditional storytelling, often mythological or symbolic), Associative (think Surreal or dreamscape), Observational (visual subjects, often quite ordinary, are made magical through an intense quality of observation and annotation), and Material Expressionist (The use of physical material or their distress is central to the meaning generated). These categories are not exclusive but offer “central organising principle” around which other decisions can be made.
By the end of the course you will have experienced applying a range of approaches and skills that should help to clarify what you find most natural and fruitful for you, at least at this point in your life.
There is 10% off with an Early Bird discount until the 24th June 2023.
I have been asked to judge Brisbane Rotary Art Show 2023 (entries close 27th May 2023)
I will be judging the Oil Painting and Acrylic Painting. I thought I would share here my approach to judging competitions such as this here since it relates to the issues mentioned in above in designing compositions.
Basically I try to minimise my personal bias, or at least be transparent about what I am basing my assessment on, by referring as much as possible to concrete standards:
The traditional design values of how harmony and contrast apply to the categories of linear, tonal and colour arrangement, to create both unity and selective focus within a picture.
Visual effects, as described above: how convincingly a sense of light, atmosphere and space, and the sense of implicit storytelling (where these factors are relevant) have been applied.
How the physical media has been handled and whether there is coherence in the brushwork and mark making, a suggestion of creative process - whether painterly or more delicately rendered.
I consider the breaking of cliché through novel metaphor/ approach a positive quality - though I consider novelty itself only a positive where it manages to generate meaning for the audience.
Finally, all these factors are only relevant in so far as they speak poetically or meaningfully, and so this sense of coherence is my final standard for assessing the success of a composition - does this work speak to some aspect of the human condition, some aspect we all share as humans, as different as we are.
While it is impossible to remove my biases in this process, you can see how these type of standards provides a sense of transparency that is connected to the conservation of a certain tradition in the visual arts, that I believe still have their place today, even as the world changes in many ways.
Awards and Judges
I’ll be judging the Oil and Acrylic sections, while the wonderfully creative photographer Beth Mitchell will judge Photography and Mixed media/ Drawing sections, and Lara Cresser, a law academic and professional experienced in art competitions will be judging the final categories of Water Colour and 3D. We will jointly judge the overall winner, which offers a $10,000 prize.
So if this way of thinking resonates with you, you might like to apply for this competition or visit their social media pages
Info for Artists from the website