Dogs and Puppies

ESTABLISHING A COMPOSITION

Composition is the arrangement of elements within a space. An effective composition leads the viewer’s eye into the drawing and toward an area of interest, or the focal point. A poor composition often is uninteresting and lacks a natural, balanced feel—the drawing might be too symmetrical, it might have too much visual weight on one side, or the subject might be too small or large within the picture plane, the two-dimensional surface within the four sides of your paper. Before you begin creating a portrait, you’ll want to work out your composition to ensure that the elements of your drawing come together in a dynamic way. When approaching a subject, I immediately make two important decisions about the composition: whether ...