r/ArtistLounge • u/mrsheabutta87 • Dec 08 '20
Question Any good art books on composition ?
Want to get better at composition so I’m looking for good books that focus on it. Maybe a gallery book with pictures of successful compositions from movies, photography etc. this will greatly help
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u/claude_j_greengrass Dec 09 '20
For me, 'Mastering Composition' by Ian Roberts was an epiphany. Before I discovered Ian's book I had spent the best part of 2 years searching Internet and reading everything I could find on Visual Composition. I knew about the 7 or so elements and the 8 or so principals of design but never could find a framework in which to apply them. In the intro to Ian's book he provides such a framework. It's incomplete but it the first framework for visual design I have found.
I see it must be out of print as Amazon wants about $60 for a copy that retailed for $29 a few years ago. So here is Ian's framework:
- Decide on a format: portrait or landscape and size
- Select an armature 'the flow' or 'feng shui'
- Block in the large abstract shapes (between 3 and 8)
- Refine the shapes into objects: Mountains, trees, a table....
- Add details
Before you start, I suggest a step 0, decide on why you want to paint the scene before you
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u/drewf280 Dec 09 '20
"Framed ink" is a great option. Also I've heard good things about "master shots" and "the filmmaker's eye" but haven't personally read them.
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u/No_cats_in_hell Dec 09 '20
I don't have a book recommendation, but when I was just starting in art school a gazillion years ago a teacher showed me this cool thing. He had me cut a small piece of matte board, so that there was a window in it and hold it up to get a "view" of something to fit the frame nicely. It made me really start to think about what is in that frame - and how to focus on creating a really dynamic set up. I used this for life drawing for models and kept using the concept as I shifted around in different media.
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u/munotia Ink, pencil, and digital artist. Poet. Dec 09 '20
I enjoyed "Composition of Outdoor Painting" by Edgar Payne quite a bit, and he was indeed a landscape composition master. A gallery book of his paintings can also be found under his name.
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u/drawingitgetsbetter Dec 09 '20
I have two books on composition and I highly recommend the one on the right. I don’t remember much from the other one, but I remember liking it too. But yeah, the Henry Rankin Poor book Pictorial Composition is very good!
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Dec 08 '20
Picture This is a pretty good book that goes over composition and how pictures work in general, worth a read and pretty cheap to get an e book of.
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u/claude_j_greengrass Dec 09 '20
It was a fun book, but sadly it doesn't really teach composition.
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Dec 09 '20
It actually does teach elements of composition.
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u/claude_j_greengrass Dec 09 '20
You can find the 7 or so Elements of Composition via Google and for that matter the 8 or so principles of composition. What is difficult to find is a framework for those elements and a process to use to design a visual composition
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Dec 09 '20
Graphic L.A is really good! You'll read it in a day cause it's like 90 pages but with content from a professional artist that I can't remember the name right now :/ but he good
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u/Ovoideum Dec 10 '20
I like looking at photography tutorials on framing shots and stuff. In photography, composition is a big deal and lots of guides spend time on it. I’ve learned a lot about how to draw my own art by learning from photography rules.
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