Day 10 – A Watercolorist’s Journal
What we like and what we don’t, what is pleasing to the eye, is not random. There are rules for it. And the rules–ironically enough–prescribe randomness, asymmetry, and imperfection. Take the Rule of Thirds, for example, which instructs that, if you imagine little dotted lines dividing your page into thirds, top to bottom and left to right, the four points where the lines meet are the ideal locations for focal points. Why have such a rule? Because our brains–the logical, precise, orderly central processors that have managed to clothe, feed, and shelter us over millennia–they appreciate nothing more than order. Left to their own devices, they would put a focal point right in the middle (eew), or pairs of them arranged in a row (nope).
This leads to the next rule: The Odd One Out. Focal points must exist in odd numbers, so that our eyes, frantically roaming the page for static pairs, can never rest, is always left with that one odd point of interest to move on to. This keeps things dynamic, asymmetrical, and interesting.
For the same reason, between warm and cool colors on the page, there must be a clear winner. Because equality and balance, things we strive for in so many other areas of our lives, are just plain boring when it comes to painting.
Now, these are called “rules” for a reason. Guidelines, principles, precepts, doctrines, maxims, credos … those are all so serious-sounding. But rules? Rules are made to be broken.