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Sandy Breckenridge’s career as a maker, designer, and artist span over 40 years.

Basic Picture Arranging Principles

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Two Mice Side by Side
Picture Arranging: Image illustrates two mice that are the same size centered and positioned side by side.

“Symmetry, as wide or as narrow as you may define its meaning, is one idea by which man through the ages has tried to comprehend and create order, beauty, and perfection.” — Hermann Weyl

After Basic Surfaces Enrichments, the sixth tutorial of the Graphic Design Basic Element Series covers Basic Picture Arranging Principles.

The above quote by E. M. Forster, a brilliant German American mathematician who gave lectures in the early 1900s on “Space, Time, Matter” revealed his deep appreciation for philosophy and how the topic relates to his findings on relativity.

Leave it to the complexity of a physicist to describe how a simple relationship of objects in art and their placement lends to its visual appeal while convincing the viewer of its relation to position, direction, and size.

Positioning objects
An example of object position to one another and their relationship to the entire space.

Position

As a graphic design arranging principle we describe the term position in art as both a verb and a noun.

To position as a verb infers the action of placing an object in relation to another object within the scope of the image.

As a noun, the viewer takes in the entire scope of the picture and determines its relationship within that space.


Direction

Previously we covered direction in relation to making a mark, such as the direction of a line.

When describing arranging principles it is the point along which something lies that describes this relationship.

Some examples are:

  • Left
  • Right
  • Center
  • Up
  • Between
  • Down

The block of illustrations provide an example of each of the six basic picture arranging principles.

Six illustrations showing the basic picture arranging principles
Six illustrations showing the basic picture arranging principles

Direction can become more complex as we’ll learn in the next tutorial that covers Five Basic Relationships.

Size

Big Cheese Little Mouse
An example of how altering the size of objects will change the main subject for the viewer.

In design, size describes the quality of a thing which determines how much space it occupies.

The action of sizing an object can also make a statement.

Sizing helps in determining if an object becomes the focal point or a supporting element. The two illustration examples of the mouse and cheese make this point by altering the size proportions.

In one the mouse is the focal point. In the other illustration, cheese becomes the main subject.


Art Play: Rearranging Objects

An artist can place an element to build interest and move the eye into the artwork. This can entice the viewer to relate more deeply to a dominant object and allow other illustrated elements to be supportive of the theme.

Take some time in your art journal and play with an object that would normally be sized relative to other objects in its natural environment.

See how much fun you can have changing its position, size, and direction. You might place it in the foreground and make it small, or in the background and change its color. Notice how the eye relates to the object as you make these changes.

Downloadable Tutorial Guide

Please feel free to download the image guide for Basic Surface Enrichments.

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Our next tutorial will describe the Five Basic Relationships found in design and a downloadable tutorial image.

To follow along, click > Art & Design Tutorial Table of Contents

Basic Surface Enrichments

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3 Crow Image Example of Surface Enrichments
Note: The illustration of the three crows demonstrates the use of the three additional surface enrichments: color, texture, and pattern.

“There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.” — Edward de Bono

After Four Basic Surfaces, the fifth tutorial of the Graphic Design Basic Element Series covers three additional Basic Surface Enrichments.

The quote by Edward de Bono acknowledges one of the descriptive design terms as a repetitive action that limits creativity. The way the term or word pattern is used in design is as a noun that enriches creative visual appeal often making art more interesting.

Enriching the Exploration of Surfaces

There are three additional surface descriptions to add to the list of reflective, opaque, transparent, and translucent covered in our last tutorial. Now you can add these three to the explorations in your art journal. Record the additional variations as options to visually enhance a surface.

Texture Definition: A surface with repetition of a non-recognizable unit.

Many adjectives could describe the qualities of a texture.

Smooth can be one of them, but it does not elicit the contrast needed to distinguish it from an opaque or tonal surface. Explore and create examples that demonstrate how to example enough contrast for the shape to appeal to the viewer as a recognizable texture.

Creating Appealing Textures

Take an existing surface in one of your journal explorations and play with the following descriptions. You could play with a tonal circle, square, or triangle and illustrate any of the following definitions. Below are ten descriptions to get you started. See if you can identify additional textural enrichments and add them to the list.

  • Coarse
  • Bumpy
  • Rugged
  • Lumpy
  • Pebbly
  • Ripply
  • Fuzzy
  • Gritty
  • Chalky
  • Splattery
Examples of Textured and Reflective Surface Enrichments
Examples of Textured and Reflective Surface Enrichments

Adding Color: Newton’s Rainbow

The visible light spectrum is the section of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum that’s visible to the human eye as color. A complete study is needed to fully wrap the mind around the topic of understanding color theory. This tutorial just touches on the option of using color to define a design surface.

Back in the 1600’s Isaac Newton defined color by using a division of seven spectrums of light placed within a color wheel. It is referred to as Newton’s Rainbow.

The seven spectrums of light in Newton’s color breakdown.

The seven colors that he described are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

Color as a Surface Enrichment

Color can enrich both a tonal and an opaque surface. It subdues an element by giving it a sense of moving into the background, or it can be bright and vibrant that visually moves the element forward into the foreground.

Color as a Surface EnrichmentColor can also enhance every design component.

It can define a space by using a colored line to outline a shape. Color can invoke contrast. Illustrating with complementary hues can create harmony or the opposite can happen with discordant colors.

Opposite colors on the color wheel can also complement each other. Some combined color choices can be so unappealing that an image can demonstrate a feeling of friction or uneasiness.

Color can define tonal percentages as additional light alters the illuminating value of a hue.

By darkening down color like in a cast shadow suggests another form of contrast.

Explore the use of color to enhance various shapes in one of your art explorations in your daily art exercise journal. Can you alter the mood or emotion you feel when viewing the image with the use of color?

The Graphic Design Color Wheel

Graphic Design Color Wheel

An artist uses a color wheel to help determine what chromatic relationship of color values and hues are best used to illustrate their works.

The wheel is organized with the primary colors placed equidistant from each other. The secondary and tertiary colors are found logistically placed between.

The entire wheel is a logical yet abstract visual aid. It helps when determining the assigned color codes of the value of a hue and aids in the printing process.

You may also be interested in bookmarking The Perfect Painting Palette Series to learn an optimal method for mixing colors that will make your artwork come to life. 

Pattern as a Surface Enrichment

Color and Pattern The definition of a pattern: A recognizable and repeating unit of shape or form can be described as a pattern.

A pattern can contain all other surface descriptions and enrichments as long as it convincingly suggests repetition.

Nature can implicitly illustrate the use of patterns. A beautiful example is spiraling seeds in the center of a sunflower. Or, the ripple of a pebble seen in a puddle of water. A pattern can be soft and curvy, or contrasting and definitive.

A fun exercise is thumbing through a stack of magazines and noticing how a pattern is pictured in nature and man-made elements. Some examples are in architecture, masonry, landscaping, fabric, weaving, pottery, etc.

Neg/Pos Zip Bug Pattern Image
Zip Bug Design: A negative/positive pattern demonstrating reversing direction.

Once I was asked to create a pattern that included reversing the design element. The art exercise was a challenge and was fun and rewarding. Perhaps, you may be up to the same challenge?

Depending on your given allotment of time a lovely floral pattern might be the perfect first attempt in pattern making.

Downloadable Tutorial Guide

Please feel free to download the image guide for Basic Surface Enrichments.

The next post in this series describes Basic Picture Arranging Principles. The placement of the elements can even suggest to a viewer that a two-dimensional surface demonstrates a three-dimensional perspective.

An artist can place an element to build interest and move the eye into the artwork. This can entice the viewer to relate more deeply to a dominant object and allow other illustrated elements to be supportive of the theme.

Our next tutorial will describe the Basic Picture Arranging Principles found in design and a downloadable tutorial image.

To follow along, click > Art & Design Tutorial Table of Contents

Graphic Design: 4 Basic Surfaces

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Example of Four Basic Surfaces

“To improve oneself you must be as persistent as the drip, drip, drip of water filling a bucket. Do a little bit, every day.” ― Jeffrey Fry

After Basic Directions, the fourth tutorial of the Graphic Design Basic Element Series covers Four Basic Surfaces.

The quote by Jeffrey Fry reminds me of what it means to have a daily art practice. I don’t know of an artist who would say they have mastered art! Art is one field where there is always more to learn, do, express, and discover.

Exercising the Artist Within

Have you experimented with the mantra shared in the last graphic design post?

“line, plane, tone, small, medium, and large”

Creating an art journal is a perfect way to track progress. This way you’ll have an easy record of your daily art explorations. You can go back anytime and embellish or change up the variations you create and explore additional elements.

Try altering each of your illustrations, paintings, drawings, or images by using a different medium, too. Try incorporating new shapes, sizes, textures, tones, and directions.

Exercising the way we see an object or an interest while recreating that which we see in simplistic terms can lead to a pleasant storm of ideas.

I remember one of my art instructors telling me that all design in art is redesign. Another way to phrase the evolution of an idea is that it is a variation of a theme.

Identifying Four Basic Surfaces

It is time to experiment with the next category of elements in this series. These are the Four Basic Surfaces in graphic design.

  1. Reflective: A surface that gives back an image
  2. Opaque: A surface that is solid without light
  3. Transparent: A surface that transmits light rays so that objects on the other side are recognizable.
  4. Translucent: A surface that lets light pass through it but is not transparent.

Reflective Surfaces

Reflective Surface
Reflection of flowers in foil.

The most common reflective surface that we experience is easily found in our homes.

The mirror is the most obvious device that reflects. But this brings up the question of how reflection is modeled in art?

Creating a collage from torn papers can be a perfect way to incorporate existing reflective surfaces by including foils, reflective tape, or paper in your design.

You can also purchase mirror paint at most any home improvement store. In an art store, you can find acrylic paint that is formulated to reflect or simulate reflective qualities in an artwork.

There is also another way to capture the qualities of a reflection. For example, a landscape painting may illustrate a lake with a body of water reflecting the trees and mountains above.

Another illustration could be a painting of a car with a shiny finish parked alongside a row of bright flowers showing a floral reflection as a point of interest.

What examples can you dream up and add to your daily art journal that offers reflective qualities?

Opaque Surfaces

Opaque Surface
Example of an opaque surface where light is blocked by the dense curtain.

A solid color that does not allow light to pass through it is very easy to illustrate and takes the least amount of imagination.

If you held up a piece of opaque paper to cover a lightbulb the luminous rays are not able to penetrate or shine through the surface.

In an art image the same is true. Just like the illustration of the curtains that cover a window, the objects on the other side of an opaque color are not visible.

Transparent Surfaces

Transparency in art can be created by using a clear film like medium or paper to overlay over another layer of colored paper. The color will be clearly visible.

A transparent surface can easily be modeled in a collage using see through materials as one of your supplies.

Transparent Surface
Example of a transparent surface allowing the outdoor scene to be seen through the window panes.

How might transparency appear in a painting?

Imagine an illustration of a window with lightweight gauze curtains covering a few panes of glass.

The glass clearly allows the distant scenery to glimmer through and this surface leaves nothing to the imagination for the viewer.

Another example, could be a painting of a pristine body of water that allows images of the colored stones that lay at the bottom to shine through the water’s calm surface.

Transparent surfaces can be implied or created. You might try using various types of see-through materials that allow objects and shapes on the other side to be fully visible.

Translucent Surfaces

Translucent Surfaces
An example of a translucent surface showing lightweight gauze curtains allowing the background to show through.

Light also plays an important role in creating translucency. In this case, light passes through to create transparency, but the objects on the other side are not fully recognizable.

Artist materials could include tissue papers, or other lightweight see through materials such as a tinted film.

Using the previous example of a window with a lightweight curtain, we can see the material allows the glimmering colors and elusive shapes to shine through to the viewer.


Art Playtime

Make sure to take time before moving on to the next post and record examples of each of the Four Basic Surfaces in your art journal.

You might like to take each of the basic shapes and apply a couple enrichments to each one.

Downloadable Tutorial Guide

Please feel free to download the image guide of the Four Basic Surfaces.

The next series post incorporates several Basic Surface Enrichments. They offer additional opportunities to change up your creative ideas and practice creating some fun art images.

To follow along, click > Art & Design Tutorial Table of Contents.

Introduction to the 8 Compositional Devices

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One Dominant Composition Graphic Image
One Dominant Composition Graphic Image

“Create with heart, build with the mind.” — Chris Jami, American poet, essayist, musician, singer, designer, lyricist, and existentialist philosopher

Why Learning the Art of Composition Matters

Our last series, Graphic Design Basic Elements, covered all the components for creating a painting, artwork, or graphic design.

Now, in this series, we cover the complete composite of options for compositional design by defining the image’s visual field and the container for any artwork.

The noun, device is the term used in design to describe the composition as a container.

The possibilities start with eight primary devices and expand to sixty-four variations.

The 64 Compositional Device Series helps an artist build a foundation for constructing a design and delivering their full intent for creating the artwork.

Every artwork’s composition uses one of the eight devices as the primary description for the compositional quality of the design. We will progress through this free online art lesson learning how the devices combine to include a secondary one.

How Do Devices Differ From Elements?

Image description of graphic elements and graphic devices

This post’s introduction graphic has a primary device of One Dominant. The globe is the one dominant device. However, it contains a secondary device. And that is the landscape scene with the birds lifting into the foreground with a fiery sun behind them (more on this in the next lesson). This one dominant focal point lies in the center of the image. It should never touch the edges of the artwork.

This device does not touch the edges but lies within the image. The artwork also contains another compositional quality as a secondary device termed structure.

The 8 Primary Compositional Devices

By the time we cover all 64 possibilities you will have examples for each one as a downloadable image.

Here is a list of the primary eight devices:

  1. One Dominant
  2. Two Dominant
  3. Pattern
  4. Negative Positive
  5. Structure
  6. Movement
  7. Frame
  8. Perspective

Simple Examples of the 8 Compositional Devices

Here is a slide show of simple graphics for each of the 8 devices. All possibilities are a main foundation for all artwork.

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Art Play Exercises

Grab your art journals from the previous series and it’s time to play! If you are new then grab a notebook, some art materials, and a bunch of old magazines.

  1. Look through old magazines that you don’t mind ripping out the pages. Identify at least three examples of each of the eight devices. Start a slush file which is a term used by artists. It’s a folder containing examples of visual ideas that you can categorize as examples. The contents serve as a reference to stimulate your imagination each time you begin a new creative project. Remember, conceptual time is also productive time. 🤔
  2. Play with your favorite art medium and illustrate an example of each of the eight devices. In this creative playtime, remember to keep it simple. This way you can breeze through all eight and get them in your etched into your memory. You’ll also have your notebook for future reference!

Our next tutorial will expand on the One-Dominate compositional device variations.  Eventually your notebook will contain a total of 64 possible layout and design compositions.

Downloadable Tutorial Sheets

8 Compositional Devices

To view the next post in the series, click > One Dominant Variations.

In case you are viewing a post in the middle of a series, click to view > Art & Illustration Series Table of Contents