Visual Composition

 I think it is vital for anyone trying to develop their skills in art to understand exactly what meaning of visual composition is. The term composition means ‘putting together’ this is basically elements put together by conscious thought, it can also be thought of as the organisation of the elements of art according to the principles of art. Understanding this principle and being able to develop it in my work is a professional skill I need to acquire. When looking at successful piece of work you can see how and why that person has placed the elements in a particular order, for either realism or for the image to have impact and make the audience feel a certain way. For example if a  photograph was taken at a man’s level this would treat him as an equal, if one was taken from below it could result in an impression of dominance.

 

 I have recently tried to incorporate good composition into my 3d work, I haven’t had much feedback from the design yet but I’m hoping the way I have laid out specific objects creates and impression of realism, which was the brief to create a realistic grouping of trash as seen outside on the streets. Admitting the background of my final render needed a bit of tweaking as the colours didn’t really fit well within the scene and the lighting I used didn’t compliment the brick wall. I spent quite a while arranging the different objects and making duplicates of assets to make it more interesting, I think it’s easier to apply good composition to something you can already move around, this is why so much planning and concepting is important before attempting to start a final piece.

 

 A few principles of organisation which can affect the composition are shape and proportion, negative space, colour, contrast, geometry, lines, lighting, repetition and perspective. This is important to remember when developing any work, another technique visual artists use is the Rule of Thirds.

 The rule of thirds is a guideline followed by some visual artists. The objective is to stop the subject(s) and areas of interest (such as the horizon) from bisecting the image, by placing them near one of the lines that would divide the image into three equal columns and rows, ideally near the intersection of those lines.

 I struggle to understand and put this into practise myself with my images but I am going to start using these guidelines and see if my work improves, if so my work should be aesthetically pleasing which means the elements must be arranged in a composition ally balanced way. Overall practising these techniques can only improve my work and then eventually I can develop the understanding of where specific elements within UDK should be placed. The sooner I learn this the better, better knowledge of this will help create decent level design and help me with our group project in the future.