Totems

Here is a small abstract (surrealism) done a number of years ago when I was painting in the basement apartment in London Ontario called Bayfield Hall. On the horizon stands a giant staute (totem) of two people connected like Siamese twins, while in the middle and foreground stands oddly shaped green structures. Is the object on the left of the painting a rearing cobra? To complete the illusion of size, small trees are placed around the totems to give the viewer a sense of scale. An important concept when designing a painting in any style is 'negative space'. Now why should anything negative be good for a painting? The negative space refers to the area around your center of interest. In this case the blue sky provides the negative space, surrounding the totems. Making the negative space into interesting shapes is a very powerful way to give your designs (compositions) lots of energy. Look at the actual shapes that the blue sky makes. Those shapes are curvy, angled, flowing...interesting to look at. Imagine the totems were just straight poles, the sky would be a bunch of boring rectangles. So try to think about the space around your objects and make it as interesting as possible. 

Totems, watercolour 6 x 11" cold press paper. 2001 (No. 1583)