Create variety in your shapes. As you divide space in a painting composition, ensure that there is variety in the shape created by the divisions. Avoid creating equal sized shapes. Notice how the trees in this painting composition are all different angles and widths and unevely spaced, leaving different negative shapes.

In this unit

Variety and unity is the goal of good painting composition. This is a very complicated subject and is at the heart of every masterpiece. It cannot be reduced to simple formulas, but there are many good starting points that will help you achieve the all important goal of unity with variety. In this course you will learn:

• the importance of shape variety and some common pitfalls in positioning shapes in your painting composition
• how to use repetition to build unity in your work and what to avoid
• a quick technique for seeing the abstract quality in your painting composition
• the principle of using active and passive areas to make your work more interesting and at the same time more mysterious together with examples of the principle in action
• the principle of inequality to prevent your painting composition becoming boring
• the use of odd numbered groups to add interest to your painting composition
• the principle of 'threes' and what to avoid when applying the principle

Total number of assignments: 4

Total number of pages: 16