Nicole Caulfield Fine Art

Friday, June 15, 2012

Berries Squared

8" x 8" Colored Pencils on Pastelbord

$200 email me for inquiries

I have avoided doing square compositions for a long time because whenever I tried I just didn't like the outcome. I, however, like a challenge and I like successful square formats from other artists. Why are square formats so hard to compose? Let's think about the great masters (in my opinion) of composition - cinematographers.

The first tv had almost a square format - much unlike tvs of today

I was watching the second Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr. yesterday and was struck by the compositions created in the scenes. They routinely placed the figure of focus way off center with the action directing toward the center. They did place the central figure in the center when they were interested in force (like when he slid the chess piece right to the center of the screen) or in comedic scenes (like when they fell huffing and puffing to the middle of the floor and then cut out right away). If they had to work in a square format they would be forced more often to center the main figure and lose all the beautiful directional lines.Take a look at some of the screen shots from the movie and see if you can see what I am talking about!