Inside and to the Right

This mixed media collage by Anna Dabrowska has all its activity on the right and well as having the face, lines and opening of spaces predominantly looking or leading towards the center.

This week’s concept is not a Design Principle as you might have expected. We’ll return to that usual programming next week. Instead, I want to share something I chatted with Club members about a couple weeks ago that does tie into both composition and the concept balance we’ve been talking about. To start out, here’s a question for you.

How long do you want people to spend looking at your work?

Ideally, we want them to spend a ton of time! This is affirming for us as artists but also demonstrates the attractiveness and interest of our work. So, to keep them looking, it helps not to lead them off your “canvas” with elements that direct them towards and off the edge of your work.

It’s not that there aren’t times when you want to allude to what might be “off the canvas” but let’s assume you want to lead the viewer’s eye around and inside the piece. To keep them inside, you want to direct your elements inside as well.

For instance, if you have a profile of a face, have it turned toward the inside of the work, not towards its closest edge or, just like when you see a guy looking up, you’ll follow that gaze right off the edge wondering what they are looking at.

Same would go for anything that is arrow-like or has any kind of perceived front. You will usually want these things to face inward to keep the viewer in the composition.

So that’s a trick you can use for keeping viewers inside the composition. I’ve got one more little idea for you though.

Important elements, focal points in particular, do better when they are set off to the right (if they are not being centered which can be a very strong, if sometimes stagnant, position). I believe it’s because we start taking things in from the left and move right. You don’t want to have the most interesting part on the left with little of interest going on to the right to continue drawingthe eye in that direction.

I suspect this preference for the right side is largely a western world phenomenon because we read from left to right. I do wonder (and tried to research it but came up with nothing so far) if in countries where they read right to left or top to bottom, if they like things to be opposite the side they start reading on. Regardless, thinking about how we read a page should help you remember that little rule.

Again, it’s art, so keep in mind that the so-called rules are just ways to guide your thinking. Many artists create successful compositions without regard to these two ideas but these ideas are good options or a place to start. They could also be helpful if you need ideas to help fix a composition that doesn’t quite look right. Perhaps the right side is being ignored or strong elements lead off the canvas but nothing draws the eye back.

These ideas are certainly worth experimenting with, just don’t let them block you from experimenting beyond them.

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