Ortega/ACS

Drawing
Guidelines for developing composition thumbnail sketches
When working out your compositions for a drawing or painting, there is a process of
thinking and refinement that happens and guides the development of your thumbnail
sketches.
Learn to apply it to your own working process when you develop the design or
composition for your drawings.
GUIDELINES=

Composition happens in a space. Think about the overall shape and space for your
compositions and decide how to fill them with your chosen visual elements.
You can use a composite approach, including elements from various sources in your
compositional space, or you can use a viewfinder approach and work with a
particular arrangement of visual elements by seeing how they interact within your
viewfinder space.
You can add or eliminate visual elements in your compositions to help clarify and
emphasize the sense of design that you want to create.
You can adjust tonal relationships as well to improve the design or create a sense of
mood.
Colour can be developed as well as tone to add structure or expressive qualities to a
composition.
The overall aim of a good composition is to create a more effective image, and each
image has its own potential for good compositional organization and expressive
development of the creative idea.
Your job is to learn to recognize the potential of the image, and manipulate the art
elements and design principles to bring out its potential.
HOW TO MAKE THUMBNAIL SKETCHES=

A thumbnail sketch must include indication and development of Shape, Tone and
Space.
4 tones are sufficient. (The paper white, as black as a 3B pencil will go, and two
intermediate shades of light and dark grey, using an HB pencil with varying
pressure.)
A thumbnail sketch must not include small details and overly developed textures. It
is an informational sketch, not a final piece or even a preliminary study.