I’ve been avoiding the Daily Paintworks challenges because I am intimidated by the skill level of those who respond to them… but I’ve decided to have a go this week’s challenge since I am struggling to understand composition.

Having no art background and wanting to get into more artistic quilting, I need a stronger grounding in Art Theory. I bought Mastering Composition. I am learning a lot but I can only read a couple of pages at a time before my brain feels full — it’s a bit of a technical slog if you’ve never taken an art class.

This week’s challenge is to pick a portion of the photograph to make a good composition. I’ve come up with two ideas.

The first composition option focuses on the girl entering the cafe. I like that your eye travels from the girl up to the sign and the lantern and then comes back to rest on the girl.

I also really like that there are strongly defines light, dark, and medium values that are easy to see. The girl and wall are light, the door and sign are medium and her shirt and the cafe entrance are dark.     Right?

I might leave the cafe sitters out of the composition to simplify it. Or leave the plant and just the cafe sitters behind it. I think I am going to take her suitcase out of the painting, too.

The second option I came up with is this:

I like that your eye is drawn to the dark window and then up the stair and only then does it come to rest on the girl. My only concern with this one is that it seems like it is mostly middle (the stairs) and light (the girl and wall) values — no darks other than the pop of the window and the railing.