Dynamic vs Static – how to compose better paintings.

It is so easy to paint a boring picture! I’m sure we all have failed paintings tucked away somewhere that just didn’t work out right. They are dull and lifeless and, well, just boring! And the number 1 reason for a boring painting is a boring composition. I’ll try and give you some ideas to remedy this in this post, but first a quick story to set the scene…

My wife Donna and I drove up to the Saliente Monastery way up in the hills near us so that I could paint there. It’s a stunning building sat atop a mountain at just over 1,000 metres altitude. But this is January, and while it was warm in the valley, it quickly became apparent that it was freezing cold at the monastery. The sun was shining in the cloudless sky, but a bitter wind was whipping around, limiting my choice of painting spots.

However, I was determined to paint as we had come all this way, so I quickly set up the easel right in front of the main building and just began painting. No planning. No looking around for a better location. No thumbnails sketches. Nothing. I just painted what was there in front of me. Big mistake!

After half an hour I was feeling the chill. After an hour I was so cold that I couldn’t feel my fingers and the oil paint itself was becoming all sticky and was refusing to move around on the support. It was time to call it a day and head home. We clicked a few photos and jumped back into the warm of the car.

However I determined to plug away at it in the hope that I might just be able to rescue it. Another Big Mistake! If the starting composition is awful, then there is nothing that can be done. Adding texture or details or more colour won’t mend a rotten composition.

The painting was just about blocked in, but even at this stage I sensed it was a failure, so I gave up on it. There was no sense in wasting more time on a painting that would never improve.

From Static to Dynamic

Then I saw a photo that Donna had taken of the same building, but with a dynamic composition.

It was all diagonals and perspective and, even though it was the same place on the same day, the composition was exciting.

I made a thumbnail sketch of both views to compare them, and then painted the dynamic version (below). (For more info on the value of making thumbnail sketches, see this post)

I hope you can see the difference the change in composition made to this scene. I was much more motivated to paint the dynamic version and I think it resulted in a much better painting.

In conclusion…

Never be in a hurry to paint a scene – even when the weather is against you. It saves so much time and energy (not to mention paint!) if you spend a little while searching for the perfect – and sometime unusual – dynamic composition. It will be there somewhere! Then check it with a quick thumbnail sketch, and you will be ready to paint a successful picture. That bit of time spent beforehand in the planning will save you hours of time later!

I hope you found this post interesting and helpful. Please give a thumbs up if you did.

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