Painting and Developing a Composition

We asked illustrator Mary Jane Begin to create a brand-new composition from three (surprise) elements. The goal? To teach members how to think about composition in terms of visual interest and implied story. In these videos, Mary Jane creates thumbnail sketches to conceptualize the layout and chooses the thumbnail that best communicates the message. She then translates that thumbnail into a larger sketch and uses color and texture to pull together a composition suitable for showing to a client or using as the basis for a final painting or illustration. These lessons show how an artist works on her feet, and puts concepts such as the rules of thirds, negative space, and drawing from reference materials into a real-world context.