6.3 HOW DOES IT LOOK?

VISUAL STRUCTURE

Now we’re going to think a little about how to assess our work by how it looks.

A key way for us to assess how our art looks is through the lens of unity and contrast (or sameness and difference or uniformity and variety). This is what I am going to explain in this lesson and it can be game-changing for making your art look stronger and more pleasing.

When trying to assess something you have created you can think about the different elements of design or visual structure within your page through a lens of unity and contrast. So what does this mean? First let’s unpack the elements of visual structure or design, they are the building blocks of our art and they are:

• Tonal value (the relative lightness or darkness of what’s on our page)

• Shape (the shapes of things on your page)

• Proportion (the relative dimensions and size of what’s on our page)

• Space (the spaces or gaps between what’s on our page)

• Colour (The colour of what’s on our page)

• Line (the lines we have used to create our artwork)

• Texture (the actual texture of our art materials on the page or the illusion of texture created by our marks)

This may sound a little technical - but really these elements of design are just the things we arrange or organise on our page to create a composition.

TOO MUCH UNITY CAN BE BORING

Some unity/ similarity in the elements above can make your work feel cohesive, whole, ordered whilst too much unity or sameness and your work can feel dull and predictable. So for example if all the tonal values on one page are the same it might feel a little dull. If all the shapes are the same it might feel uninteresting. If all the proportions are the same it might feel boring. If all the spaces or gaps between things are the same if may feel dull. If all the line work is the same it might feel boring.

TOO MUCH VARIETY CAN FEEL BUSY AND BEWILDERING

Some variety/difference in the elements above and your work can feel exciting. Too much variety and your work can feel confusing, cluttered and too busy. So again if all the shapes, all the tones, all the proportions, all the lines etc are all completely varied and very different your sketchbook page will feel cluttered, confusing, like a jumble sale and it will be difficult to look at…it will lack cohesion and won’t feel like a unified whole.

THE DANCE BETWEEN UNITY AND CONTRAST

Only you can decide the correct balance between unity and contrast within your work there is no exact forumla, but thinking about your art in these terms is super helpful and can really help you to make art which looks and feels more impactful. Artwork that feels off is often down to too much sameness (not enough contrasting elements) or too much difference (too many contrasting elements).

If your artwork feels dull and predictable perhaps too many of the elements on the page are the same and you need to add something a little different, something which is a contrast to what is already there. If your page feels cluttered and confusing perhaps there is just too much variety and you need to eliminate, simplify or take out some of the variety.

VISUAL HIERACRCHY

There is a hierarchy when it comes to thinking about artwork composition. The most noticeable aspect of an artwork is value or the lightness and darkness. When a piece of art isn’t working one of the easiest ways to try and fix it is to add some dark or some light. I find that often when I think a page feels a bit off and I squint my eyes, I realise it is because it is all very mid tone and as soon as I add some dark or light areas it feels much better (like I did in the collage made from magazines.)

Value difference (when dark is next to light) is one of the first things we see when we look at art (and the world). Our eyes search the page for the areas of highest contrast, if the whole page has little contrast it can feel uninteresting.

This isn’t a composition course (if you want to dig into composition and understand it more, a really good book on it is The Simple Secret to Better Painting by Greg Albert) but here are some of the easiest ways to fix your art or assess your art if you think it doesn’t look right:

• Do you have black areas and white areas? Can you make your dark areas darker or your light areas lighter?

• Do you have some variety of shape and variety of shape intervals (the space around elements)?

• Does your art contain at least some opposites and variety? ie if you have an extremely busy area do you also have a quieter area next to it?

• How can you enhance the contrast? (List of types of variety and contrast below, ie how can you make the busy area super busy and the quiet area even quieter)

• The most visually significant part of a painting is the point where the contrast is the greatest. Can you use this fact to emphasise the part of the sketchbook page that you want to be the most important? ie decide which part of your page is the most important and make this the area that has the most significant contrast of the whole page

EXAMPLES OF DIFFERENCE AND CONTRAST

Here is a list of different contrasts which you might want to utilise. This is not an exhaustive list you may want to add your own. If you look at your artwork and it’s extremely bright you might want to add a muted element to add contrast. If everything is curved you might want to consider adding a straight element. If it is very dark you might want to add a light element. If it a very dense page you might want to add an area of space. If it is entirely blue you might want to add some orange…If its super neat you might want to add a messy corner…

• Light and dark (the most important)

• Difference in shapes (ie circle and triangle)

• Difference in shape intervals or the space between shapes (the gaps)

• Horizontal and vertical

• Large and small elements

• Saturated and desaturated colour

• Cool and warm colour

• Red and green

• Blue and orange

• Yellow and purple

• Bright and muted

• Opaque and transparent

• Dots and lines

• Hard and soft

• Grouped and separated

BRINGING THIS ALL TOGETHER

So how do you use this idea of unity and variety in your sketchbook? It is actually quite simple once you have understood it and it can make a massive difference to how your art looks. You can use it to assess your work whilst making it or after you have made it by asking yourself, ‘Do I have enough variety’ and ‘Do I have enough unity?’

Have it in the back of your mind as you make art, look at what is on your page through a lens of variety and unity. If everything is looking a bit same-y, add in something that is the opposite of what is already there. Ie if everything is looking a bit restrained, add a wilder element. If everything is very obvious you might want to add in something subtle. If everything is very dark you might want to add in something light.

If you feel your page is looking very cluttered and confusing think about how you can add in a little more unity and coeherence, if it is all feeling very overly patterned, add in some space or a plainer, less busy areas, if its all feeling extremely messy and jumbled think how you can add in some more order and unity, it might need some more elements which are similar to each other.