I had fun this afternoon putting together a new composition. After a while it almost became a game. Certainly there was a playful element about the process. Here’s how to goes.
I started with a reference photo taken during my woodland walk yesterday. This was cropped to the proportions I wanted, and then printed. The first thing that struck me was that a prominent tree to one side was quite wrong for the emotional effect I wanted. As it happened, I had another photo taken on the same trip, of a different tree that fitted the mood much better. So, using pastel pencils I altered the tree in the main photograph, in order to resemble the “ideal” tree.
Rock formations to one side lacked both the definition and conformity with the composition for which I was looking. They were given the treatment also, and a large, obtrusive branch was also edited-out with pastels. The light in the background lacked the quality I needed it to be, so that was touched up too, as was the moss growing on a foreground boulder.
I wanted the centre of attention in the picture to be a human figure, and so I extended an area of rock in order to enable this to stand in the place I wanted. The proportions of the figure were then drawn using an articulated wooden mannequin. A silhouette will do for the time being.
That will do for now. It gives me something to pin up and look at for a while, deciding whether the composition is what I want it to be, before make a final choice of medium, and I start to draw it out properly. I don’t suppose that this is a technique that will answer all my needs. Already I can see some circumstances in which it might inhibit rather than facilitate creativity. Even so: on this occasion it has been a very worthwhile experiment. Actually, the process rather resembles playing with Leggo, building up a model from little blocks. I enjoyed that very much when my kids were young, and it’s good to have an excuse to play with it again.