The Detective, In The Kitchen, With A Coin (ALSO ELEPHANTS)

Yesterday we had our visual language class where we showed everyone the painting we'd done in response to our last class. We got given three random words, a place a person and an object, and we had to make 5 different compositional sketches and then pick and paint our best one. I did mine in gouche and was actually super happy with the result. 

I chose to place the kitchen in the background as I felt it was the visual element that was least important , then I placed the detective and the coin in the very foreground. This is something I really never would have thought to do before the class but now I can see from looking at my sketches that the most exciting compositions are usually the ones where the information isn't just arranged like a crappy still life so you can see absolutely every part of everything and everyone, on the same plane as each other. 

compositional sketches

Final image

Also in todays session we learnt about framing an image and how we can do this most effectively. In response to this we got given another 3 random things, this time it was ourselves, and elephant and a butterfly, and we had to create the best composition we could considering everything we learnt in the last class, as well as framing.

I chose to make everything the size it would typically be, maybe scaling the elephant down a bit. I also knew I wanted to fill most of the frame with as much information as possible because I thought with a big subject matter like an elephant, this made the most sense. This was my final outcome:

I'm honestly not sure how I managed to make the colour values of this work so well when we had so little time to do it in, but there we go. I chose to show the elephant strangling or cuddling me, while I was looking at the butterfly perched on the elephants trunk, so the elephant really ended up taking up most of the frame, with me being a smaller feature in the middle and the butterfly an after-thought. I was really pleased with the outcome and think this session has helped me to think more carefully about how I'm composing my images, because images are so much more interesting when they're structured in a dynamic way.