Focal point of the painting…the point of interest

While thinking of an idea for a painting, one can get lost and try to imbibe way too many ideas in a single painting. It’s crucial however to remember that there should be one main idea called focal point of the painting. A lot of ideas could distract the viewer from enjoying the painting. Even if one looks at a photograph, the focal point has most of the details and sharpness. On the other hand, the remaining portion is visible yet blurred with minimal details.

The same applies to a painting too. I learned and applied this concept to the maximum in my painting entitled “The Goodness”.

The initial layout in water colour looked like this:

As seen in the above layout, the painting is divided into three parts. The middle part signifies the vital truth of difficulties (sticks) and opportunities (rings) coming hand in hand throughout our lives. With this painting, I tried to emphasize the fact that whatever good you do to others (shown by soft forms in first part of the painting), it comes back in your life too (shown by the third part of the painting). There were however some flaw in this initial layout:

• The asymmetry between the first and third part was not very appealing.
• The middle part was way too static.
• The brown colour used in the middle portion was not blending well with rest of the painting.
• There were way too many designs and distractions in the first and third part of the painting. In short, focal point of the painting was missing.

After above layout, I started this painting in oils. The journey and the vision of this painting weren’t very clear to me but I still went ahead with the painting.

So, the initial oil medium version of this painting looked like this:

At this stage, some issues were addressed:

• The middle portion wasn’t static anymore.
• There was more symmetry in the first and third part of this painting.
• The brown colour was completely replaced by shades of dark maroon.

However, some issues still needed to be addressed in this painting:

• The first and third portions were still too bright and they needed to be toned down. It was required so that only the middle portion could remain the point of interest or focal point of the painting.
• The grey sticks and white rings in the middle portion were still not going well with the rest of the colour scheme.

So, after keeping above points and giving the final touches, “The Goodness” – (with a distinct focal point of the painting at the center) was ready to be viewed:

So, that was the story of this painting. It took me lot of time to complete this painting but the learning experience was totally worth it!