What’s so important about composition anyways?

When creating an illustration for public exhibition, the composition of the image means everything. As scientific illustrators, we strive to weave an educational narrative into our work. This is easily done when creating a poster or a figure for a book and there is text to fill in the blanks. What about creating something that is more along the lines of fine art? How do you tell a story and create something that will catch the eye of the viewer in the gallery? This is where the elements of composition come into play.

GNSI-NE’s very own Susan Stranz conducted a lecture on composition for public exhibition for the New England Chapter. She focused on the guidelines for submission to fine art shows and the general rules of composition for public exhibition. Her recorded lecture is accompanied by several images that demonstrate the principles of composition.

Recording of the lecture is now on our new YouTube Channel!

This is our very first lecture recording, so there are some technical issues, but we wanted to share it for those members who could not join us in person. Please note, the first hour of the lecture does not have much visual content, as Susan was discussing the points of composition that we would be studying in the second half of the lecture. The second half of the lecture features the discussion of numerous paintings selected by Susan to help illustrate the compositional elements she discussed in the first half. These will get better as we do more of them, I promise!