Composition and Space - Decentralized Placement and lipstick...

This week, my drawing activity and practice was to concentrate on the idea of placement of objects and how to create lively, interconnected spaces in a composition that would add to viewer interest. Sometimes, putting the subject in the centre of the page can limit the visual movements of your composition. A good example Smagula gives of a decentralized structure is (right) Wayne Thiebaud's drawing "Untitled Lipsticks". By placing the objects around the page, throughout the space, he creates a dynamic composition that holds our attention.

So for the first exercise, I took inspiration from the lipstick drawing and practised my own version of a decentralized drawing of lipstick and makeup. To get the proportion correct and placement correct, I had to close one eye to try and force myself to see the image in a 2D form and kind of used my hands to visually create a viewfinder so that I'd know where to place the objects on the page. You could also make yourself a cut out cardboard viewfinder to use - it would be useful for this exercise.

The next part was to arrange the objects as a central placement and do a second drawing. I can see that the first arrangement is more interesting and dynamic for a viewer. I've never really considered using decentralized space composition before, so this was a useful and interesting exercise for me...