WEBVTT

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PROF VAUGHN: Okay, this video tutorial is
going to give you some art historical

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context for what we're moving into with
Photoshop, and also some basic design

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principle theories.

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So we're going to talk a little bit about
composition, compositional strategies,

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the history of collage, which is where we're
sort of launching off into our digital

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collages which we're gonna call
composites, so they're very similar but

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they have a couple differences.

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Let's start off with composition.

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When we're talking about composition,
we're really trying to answer this

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question: where do you place your
elements?

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We're always thinking about placing our
elements within our composition to get at

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the most dynamic interesting look
possible.

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There are some, sort of, standards that we
have in design principle.

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We have rules, we have compositional
rules.

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We have the rule of thirds and we have the
golden rule.

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We have framing and implied lines.

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We have background colour and
atmosphere, and something we call value.

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So we're gonna look at these strategies so
that you can use them in your own work.

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The rule of thirds is a really classic
important strategy, typically used in

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photography, but we can use it also
because we're using images in Photoshop

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and we're starting to add and combine 
different elements.

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So, in this rule, we're using an imaginary
grid of 9 equal parts, the placement of

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your elements at the intersections equals
a more interesting placement for the viewer.

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Um, so in this you can imagine you have a
grid, so I've got 2 vertical lines and 2

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horizontal lines drawn in black over
these sample images.

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Anywhere those lines sort of interact,
where they cross over, so right here,

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right here, right here, right here, that is
the most dynamic placement for any

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of your objects or subjects.

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So you can see in this photograph, our
dog is placed in a really good position.

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This vase also, uh, picture, has sort of
been placed in the same position.

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Any asymmetrical placement is going to
create something for your viewers eye

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to do.

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The viewers eye is going to enter the
image plane and give it an opportunity

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to travel around the composition, because
this is more dynamic, more energetic, can

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have a feeling of tension, even.

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So these are kind of those power positions
where you could imagine placing your

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objects, elements, subjects, to create the
most dynamic possible position.

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Here's another sample, I've got the
imaginary, kind of, grid drawn over this.

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You can see we've got our subject placed
over to the left here.

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The eye is starting over here because this
is in the foreground, and it is sort of

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placed off to the side, so we start here.

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We're sort of following the curve of the
landscape, similar tonal value, following

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it around, and we very quickly, our eye is
going to go up to this bright spot, notice

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this sort of castle is also at a power
position at this intersection, and then

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we're going to travel over to this
imaginary, sort of like, dragon creature.

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So, very dynamic position because the eye
is travelling around the composition.

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Okay, really important classic, kind of,
painting, Edmund Dulac,

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this is 'The Little Mermaid.'

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Uh, here you can see we have a composition
similarly, things are asymmetrical, they are

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placed off to the right.

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It is not centered, the subject is a little bit
lower, the horizon line is up about that

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middle third if you imagine the imaginary
rule of third grid.

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Here gives you a kind of clear picture of,
kind of, how these elements are placed.

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The imbalance is good here, so remember
that, you actually want imbalance in

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your composition.

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If we compared them, I cropped the one on
the right a little bit to make it sort of

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centered, the comparison should give
you a good idea.

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Here, your eye kind of comes in and it
travels up and it comes back down.

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In this very centered image it sort of just
breaks the image plane into 2 parts.

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Very boring, very static.

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We also have 2 equal parts between the
top, because the horizon line is falling in

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the middle, and this bottom section.

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So it's very very static.

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Our second rule is the golden ratio.

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This is the Greek mathematical equation,
it expresses itself as a spiral.

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Many of the most famous pieces of art use
this ratio to decide on the placement of

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elements, and as a natural way to lead the
eye across the image.

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This is very popular in, um, architecture
as well.

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The golden ratio, again, it is a
mathematical equation.

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Once you know he equation you can use it
to determine the placement and the scale

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of certain objects.

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Here's a very famous piece, you can see
how that spiral is being expressed in

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the shape of the wave.

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Many, uh, very important and classic
logos are based on the golden ratio.

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So the ratio itself is 1 to 1.618, you can
see how these play out in logos that

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you're often very familiar with.

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So these all are using a ratio of 1 to
1.168: Chevron, Pepsi, all of these logos

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using that golden ratio.

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The idea behind the golden ratio is
that it is a mathematical proportion, so

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the ratio itself is often found in nature,
think of shells etcetera, things you find

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at the beach.

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Um, that idea is sort of, uh, being 
borrowed by designers to make logos that

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feel naturally balanced.

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Okay, let's talk about placement of where
you can put your things, again, thinking

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of the golden ratio, thinking of the rule
of thirds, thinking about imbalance,

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thinking about proportion, we're going to
try and do the most dynamic composition.

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if we think about what is the least
interesting thing to do in comparison to

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those strategies, it is always something
like this.

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It is putting your main element right
smack in the center of your image,

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of your composition.

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The horizon line directly down the center
axis, super boring, avoid this.

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We can think about giving our sense of-
giving our composition a sense of space.

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When we're thinking of creating a sense of
space, remember we're working 2

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dimensionally, but we're creating an
illusion of depth.

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There are several ways to do this, we can
use framing elements, put things in the

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foreground, angles and implied lines, or
atmospheric perspective and value.

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Framing, super simple concept, you're
thinking about what is on the edges of

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your image, left and right, top and
bottom.

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You can think about it sort of like a 
vignette, but anytime you have elements

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that are used as a frame, your viewer
has the inclination to look through

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thus these things that they're looking
through become kind of a, uh,

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highlighted aspect, if you will.

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When we're thinking about framing, it's
important to just note the following:

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foreground, this word means anything
sort of in the frontal view right here.

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Our midground appears about here
in an image, and our background of

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course is the farthest away, so it
should be back here.

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2 dimensional plane, so again it's an
illusion of space.

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If we were to print this it's actually a
flat object.

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Here's another example, what could be
placed in the foreground to create a

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sense of space?

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Particularly we know in our brain that
this is a small flower, but when placed

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bigger in the foreground and we let
the background kind of go blurry, we know

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that the landscape is actually very
dominant, it's huge compared to the

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actual scale of the flower, but by giving
the flower some prominence in the

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foreground, we have a greater sense of
space.

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Implied line, so implied lines are another
design principle that are very important.

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And implied line is a broken line that
visually we begin to connect together

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using our brain.

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Your mind is always going to try to
connect the dots, creating a

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sense of direction.

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These are hidden directionals, remember
they're not actual lines they're implied

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lines, so in this particular instance the
implied line is happening with these

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concrete spheres.

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We start here in the foreground, it's the
largest element grabbing our attention,

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our mind just sort of visually steps back
through the composition.

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So we have an implied line that's about a 
kind of soft arch.

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We have actual lines in this image too,
we've got a pattern in the sidewalk.

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More implied line.

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Think about the way perspective can work,
you've seen and heard of perspective but

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here we have a lot of actual line and 
implied line.

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Implied line happening here, we've got
this sort of repeated element dropping

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from the foreground into the background,
same here.

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We have actual line with these sort of
concrete, and the lines of the sidewalk,

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but a lot of force here, the directional
given to your viewers eye is aiming

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everything back to this little spot back
here.

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Implied line is also something that's
connected to the gaze.

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So when I say the gaze, I'm talking about,
um, a human or animal sort of view from

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the eyeballs.

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here we have our subject, they are gazing
this direction which, as a viewer of this

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artwork, I want to know wat this person is
looking at, so every viewer is going to

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follow the gaze, that's an implied line,
to this house.

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It's coming down with this sort of
landscape, coming back over.

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Or alternately, it's going up to this
house and then kind of swooping

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back around.

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So gaze is another very very important
implied line.

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Okay, value and space.

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When we talk about value in art, we're
talking about the lightness or darkness

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of something.

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When we talk about space, again, 2
dimensional but we're thinking about

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creating an illusion of distance.

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So value, importantly, has the ability to
create atmospheric perspective.

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Again, in this image we're getting a sense
of space of a distant landscape because

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this mountainscape is getting, um, 
sort of a gradation effect.

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We start from dark, medium, light,
even lighter.

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So this atmospheric perspective works a
lot like fog.

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You can think about how things feel very
far away when they're foggy.

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Here's another example, if you have a
weak atmosphere over here, you have

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a certain sense of space.

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A stronger atmosphere, over here, and it
changes the way things feel

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in the distance.

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Okay, value can be really really powerful,
you can use it to emphasize certain things.

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You very very very much can create these
sort of bright sports or areas of high

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contrast that will always draw your
viewers eye first.

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So areas of brightness are very attractive
to the eyeball, we're gonna look right

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here and we're gonna look right here, 
especially because this is so dark

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on something that is so bright.

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More examples, so these are all focal
points, your eye can't not look here

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at this egg.

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the focal point is here because it is the
brightest, the highest value.

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Same over here, this super high value
beam of light, it is so light and bright

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that we start up here and our eye looks
down, so we've got value, we also have

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a line here so we're getting a really
strong focal point.

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Notice the placement of the main
subject, also in that rule of thirds

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it's placed at an interesting kind of
dynamic position.

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Okay, let's think about collage for
a minute.

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This will be our art historical reference.

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Collage comes from the French word
collage, which means 'to glue'.

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So this is a really important word, we're
gonna think about how this forms the

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basis of what we will be doing, which is
a composite, but the idea and the roots of

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this history are very similar.

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We draw on collage from some really
important art movements.

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We have cubism, dada, and surrealism.

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All of these movements were very art 
historically because they integrated signs

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and fragments of real things.

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This is one of the first times that this
happened in art history, we moved away

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from super realistic painting of religious
figures and into using these kind of

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everyday materials to create a very 
obvious art aesthetic.

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In a collage, you have very obvious edges,
and by edges I mean these look like rough

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cut pieces, right?

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They're just glued down pieces of paper,
maybe some drawing, maybe some painting.

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This was a mix of high and low art, you're
very familiar, we've probably seen a lot

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of these kinds of pieces.

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Picasso is this example here.

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Cubism, you can think about in terms of
its sort of fragmented nature.

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We have many many many parts.

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Some cubism was just painted, some also
has collage where they glued little bits

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of paper in, but either way think of
cubism in this sort of multifaceted nature,

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they were really breaking with prior
traditions and attempting to show many

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angles at once.

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Cubism was really important because it was
a reaction, it was very much against the

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prior tradition of Western art.

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The artists broke out of artistic
conventions and they made work that felt

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fitting for their time period.

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This is Braque and Guitar.

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Dada came next.

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In dada artists incorporated a wide array
of iconography.

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These are- iconography refers to signs to
signs and symbols.

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That was reinterpreted portraits, often
they were figures that were sort of

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fantastical, very strange.

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They became a little bit more innovative
and used different and more material than

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our surrealists, or than our cubists.

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And again, iconography is really just the
study of interpretation of visual images

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and symbols, so signs and symbols.

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Hannah Hoch was a great dada artist, using
all magazine bits, cut found material,

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interesting sense of scale in Hannah Hoch's
work, interesting combination of elements.

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Very strange, uh, fantastical odd
portraits.

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Hannah Hoch is known for saying "there
are no limits to the material available

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for pictorial collages, above all they
can be found in photography, but also

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in writing and printed matter even in
waste products."

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Here are some more samples of Hannah
Hoch pulling and pushing against

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propaganda imagery, things found in
newspapers.