Posted: Friday, 21 February 2025 @ 14:48
Hi from me, Martin at Terry Harrison Art, I hope this newsletter finds you well.
This week I will continue talking about compositional rules that I introduced in our last newsletter.
Having covered the rule of thirds and centered compositions with symmetry, I will now look at leading lines and frame in a frame.
Leading Lines
Leading lines are all about how the eye is drawn across the image.
As a photographer this is one of the key elements in an image, especially the wider landscape shots where there is potential a lot going on and we want to make sure the observers eye is drawn to the main focal point.
An image can be made up of many leading lines or just one, the important element is that they are all working together in harmony.
In many of Terrys images we see fences and paths / roads making up the main leading line.
For example:
Bluebell Woods
Here the fence acts as the main leading line - taking our eye from right to left towards the lake and the trio of trees on the left rear of the image.
Bourton on the Water
Here the path is the Ian line that leads our eye down the river towards to bridge in the distance
"Calm Refections" (for sale on the Website)
On this one it’s the 2 lines of deciduous and pine trees that pull the eye from left to right and the large trees on the right from which we come down and see the water in the foreground.
"Snow Capped Mountain" (for sale on the Website)
Finally in this one due to the water taking up all of the base of the image it grabs our eye and leads up towards the treeline and mountain in the distance.
This composition would not work so well if the mountain was offset as the eye would be lead to an empty space!
Frame in a Frame
This is a common photographic technique but one less common in painting, however It can be just as effective. The principal is that the focal part of the image is already framed by an element of the foreground.
This can take many forms, and not always obvious ones. The most obvious form is something like this:
Demonstration piece from a Terry Harrison Workshop
Where the arched gateway literally frames the rest of the painting. It’s a strong part of the image, but is all the same texture and colour palette so we immediately look to what is within.
Elvet Bridge Durham UK
Here is a snap I took on my phone art a local car park in Durham- as you can see the window frame acts almost as a mount to the bridge image outside (this is the Old Elvet bridge in Durham - originally built in the 13th century)
Finchale Abbey - Durham
Finally this is an image of one of our local abbeys, again dating back to the 13th century.
Here I have used the nearby foliage to provide a frame that draws the eye inwards to the abbey.
What the frame in this instance also does is create a certain element of depth which adds to the image too.
That’s it for this week. Next week I’ll go into the rule of odds and something very specific to the painting of trees!
As ever you can follow us on social media: Facebook and instagram
Happy Painting.