The Language of Design
By Mark Eanes
Mark Eanes (Ep. 11) is an abstract artist and workshop instructor. He and his wife, Marija, are currently working on a follow up to his successful The Language of Color called The Language of Design. Learn more below.
When it comes to understanding the guiding principles of any creative endeavor, be it music, dance, literature, or the visual arts - language matters. Language provides the practitioner of any discipline a clearer appreciation and understanding of what is possible, how best to navigate a particular field of practice, but most importantly - how best to express and communicate one’s thoughts and feelings.
As the writer, Raymond Carver puts it:
“Some writers have a bunch of talent, but a writer who has some special way of looking at things and who gives artistic expression to that way of looking: that writer may be around for a time.”
For the visual artist, an understanding of design and composition is essential to one’s practice and the ability to communicate one’s ideas and vision. As a professor of art for over thirty years, I can attest that a lack of understanding of good design can be a real stumbling block for many artists. Among the many questions that arise:
Where, and how do I even begin?
How to tackle that empty canvas?
What happens when I get lost and don’t know what to do, or where to go?
How can I even see where the problems are in my painting, let alone fix them?
Tackling a complex subject such as Design + Composition can feel overwhelming to some artists because of the many layers of terminologies, concepts and strategies. As with any language it requires patience and diligence.
In my own experience and working with mentors, studying art history has been the most useful means to understand what makes for successful works of art. Students can learn much by studying the lineage of art and seeking connections with other artists.
VISUAL ELEMENTS and PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN
Design and Composition are used synonymously, but the distinction is as follows:
Design is the plan, the idea, and yes, the final product. Composition is the arrangement, or utilization of the Visual Elements to create the Design.
Let’s begin by discussing the visual elements used in drawing and painting. They represent the visual vocabulary used by artists. The visual elements are line, shape, value, color, mass, space and texture.
When you arrange these visual elements into a composition, they become the principles of design. The principles of design include balance, emphasis, visual weight, direction, simplicity, hierarchy and unity. Whether an artist works figuratively or abstractly, the guiding principles of design have proved useful in navigating the blank surface.
So what makes for good design? Here I will offer two viewpoints that summarize:
First, from author Nathan Goldstein: “The essential nature of solid design is the organization of various parts into a lucid and cohesive whole.”
Similarly, the artist Richard Diebenkorn wrote: “In a successful painting everything is integral - all the parts belong to the whole. If you remove an aspect or element you are removing its wholeness.”
WORKING TOGETHER
Successful artwork needs to consider several factors.
The first is the importance of Unity - the placement and arrangement of all the visual elements necessary to provide the viewer with a sense of an overall one-ness. In a good composition we see the whole image and great pattern before we are aware of the individual elements.
In order to achieve unity, the artist must strive for a sense of Balance, in which the Visual Weight of each element is distributed in a way that makes the composition feel stable. In doing so, the artist must create a sense of Hierarchy among the visual elements to clarify what is of importance. If not, the picture can suffer from confusion and cacophony.
In other words, if everything is important, nothing is important.
As one of my mentors explained, the best paintings ‘take the viewer on a journey.’ And in doing so, the artist must use the right tools to do so. Directed movements are at the heart of the balancing process. This can involve employing the use of Rhythm, Variety, Pattern, Contrast, and Juxtaposition of visual elements.
THE POWER OF RELATIONSHIPS
If the teaching of drawing and painting were to be reduced to one word, the word that comes nearest to embracing what artists need to consider above all other factors is relationships.
I am constantly reminding my students to step back and get some distance from their paintings, to stop painting and reflect on the relationships between all the moving parts before making their next move. Too often, the artist gets caught up in the small details and ‘precious areas’ while disregarding the need to look for the unification of all the parts into the whole.
About Mark Eanes and his upcoming workshop The Language of Design:
Eanes, along with his wife Marija, are in the process of putting together an online course, The Language of Design, as a follow-up to his previous six week course, The Language of Color. Their intention is to demystify this complex subject and provide the artist (be they beginners or advanced) with an in-depth and comprehensive course that they can access - complete with lectures, demonstrations, exercises and art history. The class will help students gain the necessary tools and visual vocabulary to give artistic expression to their own special way of looking. Learn more by joining Eanes’ newsletter at the bottom of his website here. (Make sure you scroll down to the bottom.)