Balance - Some Examples

There are two kinds of balance....

Visual Balance

Created by the distribution of equal shapes on both sides of the picture.

Symmetrical Balance - Formal 

If you draw a vertical line down the center of the picture the right side would be a mirror image of the left. Has a static feel.

Asymmetrical Balance - Informal

          Asymmetrical balance occurs when several smaller items on one side are balanced by a large item on the other side, or smaller items are placed further away from the center of the page than larger items. One darker item may need to be balanced by several lighter items. This is more difficult to achieve but has a casual feel.

Balance of Elements

Balance between the elements that make up the composition, texture, value, color and shapes. My second post, "Balance is Everything and Everywhere" covered this topic but I have some illustrations to clarify.

Both these images are boring and monotonous as they need more change to be balanced. The image on the left needs more small complex shapes while the image on the right needs more large, simple shapes.  

This image is heavy with change and needs more repetition to be balanced. All the shapes, colors and textures are different creating a chaotic disorganized composition.  

Let's see how the balance of elements works in this informally balanced painting.

Repetition

1 - All the shapes are triangles that repeat.

2 - the five colors repeat

3 - the lines repeat in a diagonal directions.

Change

1 - The size of the triangle shapes range from large to small.

2 - The colore change from dark to light.

3 - The lines change in color and direction.

The painting is also organized because the smaller triangles are grouped together to form a focal point. The larger shapes occur around the perimeter.

Here is a composition that has both organic and geometric shapes but they both repeat enough and weave together to create balance. The small complex organic shapes (people) are grouped together to create a focal point. The painting is composed of two big shapes, one light and one dark.

None of the above compositions are wrong or bad, just a difference between higher quality balanced and lower quality imbalanced compositions.

Two Dimensional Design - Building a composition

The anatomy of the picture is always more important than the anatomy of the subject.
 - Marc Awodey


To achieve harmony in a design there must be balance and order.

1. Grouping for order
2. Balance of opposites

A work of art is a composition of shapes, colors, textures and tones arranged in a specific manner. Some elements have to change to create excitement while others have to repeat to create unity. The combination is variable but there has to be a balance between the two.

Shapes

1. Geometric
2. Organic

There are two things that can change, the kind of shapes and the sizes of the shapes. For our composition I will use geometric shapes limited to squares and rectangles that will insure unity.


A composition is an arrangement, built out of parts, that aims at seamlessness. - Eric Maisel

Building a composition with line -------------------------

I have used vertical and horizontal lines to begin the composition. The division has created two square and four rectangles white shapes. The problem here is that it is too monotonous and needs greater change to make it more exciting.

I have added more lines and changed the width, this has also created a greater variety of white shapes. The new arrangement is a higher quality than our start but still can be pushed further. We can use more change and the shapes need to be grouped.

This next example has the balance and order we are looking for. 

The following elements change as well as repeat.

Line -  vertical to horizontal - 

Line Width -  thick to thin - 

White Shapes - small to large -

Areas - complex and simple.

Order has been obtained by grouping the small black lines and small white shapes.

By filling in some of the larger shapes with black we get more change and a stronger play between positive and negative.

The complex area is also the focal point, more on that in the next post.

It is important that the artist... understands the importance of composition, the golden mean... the universal symbols... The concept of perfect balance is an intrical part of this process, not only in the art but in our lives.  - Kathleen Carrillo

Two Dimensional Design - Seeing Beyond the Details

The whole is more than the sum of its parts - Aristotle

Everything is built from small pieces, atoms, molecules, pixels, paint dabs etc. It is easy to get lost in the details and miss the big picture so we group the small things together to organize our world.

Grouping for Order in our world

All the light hours are grouped together to make day, the dark hours make night, trees are grouped to make the forrest and clouds are grouped to make storms. Cold temperatures are grouped to make winter and warm temperatures summer, similar animals stay together to form flocks or herds. We group our silverware in a kitchen draw, our tools in a box and our cloths in the  closet. Everywhere you look things are grouped, an assemblage of like elements to form an organized pattern. 

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once - Albert Einstein 

Grouping for Order in Art

Again, if elements in the natural world are arranged because they have a relationship with each other then it would follow that it also has to happen in art. Similar items, shapes, color and value, on a two dimensional surface have to be linked to each other to create an orderly composition.

It doesn't matter if the shapes form a realistic or abstract image, what matters is the close arrangement of similar parts.

Connecting Values

The dark colors are grouped together to form a large dark shape as are the light colors. 

There are many small shapes and textures that build into larger shapes.

Connecting small shapes

 All the small shapes are grouped toward the center to create a larger horizontal shape. We are no longer aware of each small detail but read the big picture as one.

A visual composition is an organizing process that weaves all the small parts together to produce a unified harmonious whole.

Like elements...... shapes, color, value and tone are grouped to create order.

Design is everything. It is the structure of the painting. Among the major principles of design, unity is probably the most important... how the elements work together. - Marion Starr

Two Dimensional Design - Opposite Space

There is no better designer than nature. 

-Alexander McQueen

 

There are two types of space: positive and negative space. Positive space refers to the space of a shape representing the subject matter. Negative space refers to the space around and between the subject matter. 
It doesn't matter what 2 dimensional area you are working in, painting,  photography, advertisement or illustration the negative space needs as much attention as the positive.

One of the best visual examples of the equality of positive (figure) and negative  (ground) is the old vase profiles. 

The black can be a positive vase and the white negative space or, the white can be positive profiles and the black negative space. Both equally balanced.

Take a look at the page your reading. The letters are the positive shapes and the area surrounding the letters the negative shapes.

We have been trained to only pay attention to the positive and disregard the negative shapes. They exist together and are equally important, there wouldn't be any letters if there were wasn't empty space around them.

Look at the FedEx logo and see what you can find......................

The negative space between the E and X creates the shape of an arrow, which is now a positive shape. Most folks just see the word.

Now is a good time to look at the trees when they have no leaves and see all unique shapes between the branches. You might also check out the negative shapes between other positive objects like buildings, fences etc.

Because we usually pay little or no attention to negative space,  I used to tell my students in drawing class, what you don't draw is as important as what you do draw.
As a designer we need to focus on the negative space as much as the positive as they coexist and together create a total. 


Action and reaction are equal and opposite. 

Gertrude Stein

Balance is Everything and Everywhere

Balance is beautiful. 

Miyoko Ohno

In the beginning of our journey we learned that seeing is 1/10 visual and 9/10 mental, words are abstract and not reality. You can't get wet from the word "water". ....


After a few more hours on the road we have arrived at Balance and nothing looks familiar but I have the strange feeling I have been here before.
First, we have to find out how our world is designed and then use that to see how design works in art.

We live in a world of polarities and we need the extreme differences to coexist for the world to work..

Extremes go with each other and one can not exist without the other. A coin doesn’t have just one side, a magnet doesn’t have only a north pole. Day “goeswith” night, hot with cold, up with down etc. etc. You know when you are sad because you have experienced happiness, you know when you are comfortable because there has been a time when you were uncomfortable. Think about being being cold all the time or happy all the time, impossible because you can’t ignore the opposite. Breathing in goes with breathing out.

"The word Happiness would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by Sadness."

Carl Jung

Our earth rotates full circle every twenty four hours which means we have day and night, light and dark, total opposites which go together. There can never be just day or only dark, that would be an imbalance and nothing in our environment would survive. 

We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure 

without being more sensitive to pain.

Alan Watts

The earth also revolves around the sun every 365 days. This enables the seasonal changes to occur and once more we have total differences. The warm summer and cold winter, rain and snow. The decline of fall into winter as well as the rebirth of spring into sumer. Birth and death happen in every aspect of the universe. Humans, animals, insects, plants, planets and stars, all are born and die. Everything changes.

There is nothing permanent except change.

-Heraclitus

Everything in nature is a balance of 
change and repetition

Some changes are extreme while others are subtle, some changes we can control while others we cannot, some happen immediately while other changes take a long time to happen.

Become a student of change. It is the only thing that will remain constant.

Anthony J. D\'Angelo

Change is unavoidable. Change is the difference, the variation that makes everything in our universe stimulating, exciting and new. It's the diversity in our lives that creates excitement. Think about what your life would be like without change.  

Life is like this: sometimes sun, sometimes rain. 

Fijian proverb

So our universe, as we know it, is a balance of opposites, of changes. You can only know change because it’s opposite exists.

Repetition Repetition Repetition
Repetition Repetition Repetition

Repetition creates patterns which give the feeling of security, a sense of connection and oneness. We know that at the end of this day there will be night, at the end of the storm there will be blue sky and sunshine. The seasons are all connect together and we know they will always happen again and again. The reoccurrence of everything adds stability and unity to our life.

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.

                                                         Ralph Waldo Emerson

If we look at the rotation of the earth, day and night happens over and over 365 times a year. Summer, fall, winter and spring happen once each year but repeat every year. Emotions don’t happen only once but repeat throughout your life. 

If I accept the sunshine and warmth,

then I must also accept the thunder and lightning.
-Kahlil Gibran

We found the universe is a balance of polarities and equlibrium between change and repetition.  Why is this important?

Because too much change and we have discord and chaos, too much repetition and we have monotony and boredom. So the balance of change and repetition in our lives is necessary for harmony.

Everything that changes also repeats.

"Wit consists in knowing the resemblance of things that differ, and the difference of things that are alike."

                                          Anne Louise Germaine de Stael (1766 - 1817)

Nothing is as important as something

We can't know how design works unless we know how nature works.

The Beginning - Perception and Our World of Words

“If  you want to know the end, look at the beginning”

African Proverb

I’ve been thinking for a while that I need to make this trip and I hope you’ll join me, it’s fun to explore together.  It will be a journey that takes us on highways and back roads in all kinds of weather towards an uncertain destination, called Design. I am not sure how to get there but that's a good thing as it allows a lot of leeway. It might be difficult at times and we might get stuck or lost, on the other hand there will be a lot of progress made when we have clear sailing, clear vision and clear thinking. So pack your bags, buckle your seat belts, lets get this show on the road to see what we can discover on this journey.

As we begin it occurs to me that I can only see part of the road and I wonder how limited my vision really is......

“It is sure to be dark if you shut your eyes.”

  Martin Tupper (1810 - 1889)

When we are small and before we could speak everything we saw was a miracle where shapes, colors and textures all were amazing to us. I can remember my son was so excited by a bird in our back yard as it jumped around. He was waving his arms and pointing, smiling and laughing as the bird kept pecking at the ground and finally flew off. He learned words and soon all the objects he saw would be labeled and  

put in a category. The bird was now a “Bluebird” or “Robin” and no longer exciting or even interesting, that's when he stopped seeing.

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”                     Anais Nin

Words are positive.
Words are the way we organize the world in which we live, we couldn’t communicate without them, I could not be sharing these ideas, none of us could exchange thoughts, feelings and opinions without words. If we didn’t have language we would not be able to do all the things that are essential to a civilized people. Without words there would be no phone calls, no newspaper, no computer and no thinking....... think about not thinking.

Words are also negative. 

Letters are abstract shapes that we put together and to call words. 

As we grew we become influenced by our parents, teachers, peers and were trained to label all the objects we could see and soon found we could put those labels into categories. What were once exciting shapes with colors and textures are now words.

We have taken every shape in our universe and have replaced it with a word, put that word in a mental box and then formed an opinion about it. One of the dangers of this process is that it becomes our reality and this is when our ability to see stops. We look to classify, to label, to navigate, to categorize and judge, all inhibit our ability to see.
We have become lost in a world of words and our reality is now abstract symbols that we made up, we have become blind to the amazing visual world that actually exists around us. 

We no longer “see”, we “look”.

“The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing.”

Publilius Syrus (~100 BC)

Seeing the way we once did as little children, with clarity, excitement and fascination, is going to take desire, persistence and determination.  It requires seeing with a beginners mind and letting go of the words, not an easy task but well worth the practice. This is necessary for anyone involved in design.

It does take a long time to become young and see with new eyes.

"Every closed eye is not sleeping, and every open eye is not seeing."

Bill Cosby (1937 - ____) 

You  might want to check the map and see if there might be a quicker way to get to Design but I am guessing there are no short cuts. I think we’ll just let the road take us where it may, at least for a little while..........

"The artist should be a seeing-eye dog for a myopic civilization."

 Jacob Getlar Smith