About a year ago I posted some little thumbnail pictures by the American painter, Edgar Payne, that act as mini guidelines for composing pictures.
These composition hints were much appreciated, especially by students. Happily, I have now acquired the 1941 book from which they were scanned. (Thanks Colin!)
It was delightful to see all the other gems the book contains, especially this page that is the antithesis of my prior post about composition, because it lays out how not to compose pictures.
So I now present Edgar Payne’s sheet of thumbnail drawings called “Things to be avoided in composing”
(Click to enlarge)
The first illustration (above) is a web sized overview and not recommended for downloading and printing. You can download a printable PDF file at the bottom of this post.
I really like the squiggly quality of the type in the captions. I think they must have been done on a typewriter originally, and then pasted onto the line drawing artwork.
Download the (1.1Mb) Acrobat PDF file for a printable copy of the page, and pin it up above your drawing table!
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[...] very useful today. Payne also created a guide on how not to compose pictures, you can find it here. [...]