Composition Part 12 - Thumbnail Sketches
One of the best ways to ensure that your final rendering will have unity and impact is to work it out in a small sketch. If a thumbnail sketch is interesting, than the final rendering should have a strong presence. The best artists have been sketching ideas throughout their careers; working out ideas on a small scale and in a cheap and quick manner. Da Vinci’s sketch of St. Anne is small and rough, but starts to suggest the pyramidal composition of the final masterpiece. Rubin’s sketch for The Birth of Henri IV of France is more detailed, but conveys the serpentine composition clearly. This sketch for Wolves Attack by Jozef Chelmonski is a wonderful piece of art in itself, but is also a roadmap for the execution of a large painting. J. W. Waterhouse gets an amazing amount of feeling in this sketch of a Priestess on a Tripod . His final paintings were often reworked several times on the canvas, so this simple sketch was just the first impression. Old Man on his Deathbed...