Golden Ratio Composition Secret!

how's it going Andrew here great to have your company in this short video I'm going to share with you a killer composition technique that will transform your pie needs don't go anywhere [Music] [Music] now there's a technique that I've been using in my paintings for many years this is by no means original but as soon as I first heard about it I started using it all the time and it completely transformed my work now with my landscape paintings I'm going for something called asymmetrical balance or harmonious balance but there's a mathematical formula to getting this right every time what is it well it's the golden ratio or one is two 1.618 now before we forget that ratio I'm just gonna write it up on the board one is two 1.618 now why should you care about that number as an artist well it just so happens that this ratio shows up everywhere in nature and the even shows up within us the human body now let me just give you an example of this if I take my hand here and I compare this bone to this bone this one is bigger than this one by a ratio of one is two 1.618 but it goes even further one is two 1.618 and one is two 1.618 it even shows up when we're looking at somebody's face and we're judging them subconsciously as to their attractiveness we're looking for this ratio all the time so it makes good sense that we would put a little bit of this concept into our art but let's talk about some more examples about where this shows up in nature now I made these golden ratio calipers here that when I hold this up to something it actually divides things perfectly as two one is to 1.618 now I'll explain maybe in another video if you're interested in how to make these they're pretty cool but I've got this shelf that I bought a few years ago and I wanted to see if this actually lined up to the ratio now it's not exactly obvious with every seashell exactly how that golden ratio is displayed but here on this one it's really cool we've got these beautiful spikes that are coming off the top of that shelf but he if I hold up my golden ratio calipers you see that one there that's one is to 1.618 over here on this side we've got one is to 1.618 I just think that's the coolest thing then over here if we look at these ridge lines across the back of that shell I'll flip it around this way so you can see we've got one is two 1.618 the golden ratio is all over this sucker now I've had a plant in my studio for about a year now and when I originally picked it out of the nursery I wasn't thinking about the golden ratio but I discovered that the golden ratio is everywhere in this thing I just love it if I take any one of these leaves check this out right here where the spines are on the outer edge of the leaf here we've got the ratio 1 is to 1.618 where those spines occur and the ratio continues and it gets smaller and smaller and smaller as we get in towards the origin of that stem and virtually every leaf follows this pattern it's just fantastic now I've just talked to you about a couple of examples where it shows up in the human body as well as in nature with a shell and leaves but there's hundreds of examples of where this shows up it's absolutely everywhere now how does this relate to art well let's rewind a little bit you might have heard about this rule when it comes to composition particularly with photography let's draw a little rectangle up here now have you ever heard of the rule of thirds this is pretty common we use this in composition because everywhere these lines the 3rd marks intersect that forms a really good place to put a focal point within our composition now there's a rule that I prefer to the rule of thirds and that's called the rule of 5/8 and if we take a rectangle any rectangle divide it into eight and we drop down five across five across from the other side five down five up from the bottom where these lines intersect it'll occur just inside those third marks and this I feel forms a little bit more of a harmonious composition if we follow those but I'm digressing let's get to this diagram that you've probably seen before what if we wanted to have a composition that was based on the ratio from the outset so a golden rectangle how do we go about constructing that well if I take a square and I divide that by to go across the diagonal from the halfway point with a compass drop this down suddenly I have a rectangle that will have the proportions of one is two 1.618 now the really cool thing about the golden ratio is that it just keeps going and going and going and going you may have seen this diagram before now you've probably seen this golden spiral before if you just do a google image search on the golden ratio that diagram is gonna come up guarantee it now again how does this relate to our paintings and how does this relate to art well before I get into exactly how to use this within your composition let me just give you a couple more examples have you ever seen this sequence before 144 233 and 377 now you've probably seen that sequence before it's called the Fibonacci sequence now the Fibonacci sequence basically goes every time I go up in the sequence it's a sum of the previous two numbers so one in one equals two one plus two equals three two plus three equals five three plus five equals 8 and so on and so forth and it just keeps going and going and going so here's where it gets really really cool now I'll give you a second to just grab your cell phone or get your calculator out and follow along with me here take 377 and divide it by 233 go on work that out I'll give you a minute cool I'll try it out at home so we'll take 377 / 233 no way check it out 1.618 now this sequence doesn't stop at 377 it keeps going all you have to do is just add those two numbers together and then you get the next number in the sequence and as you get higher in that sequence any two adjacent numbers become closer and closer to that perfect golden ratio now when I was drawing these rectangles up on the board you remember me telling you about the rule of 5/8 well check it out what are these two numbers right here that's right two fibonacci numbers five and eight we're the way that a lot of people including me for a time we're dividing up our compositions to make it a little bit more visually pleasing than that rule of thirds but five eighths here isn't quite close enough to the golden ratio if we take eight and divide it by five we end up with one point six not quite one point six one eight I prefer to go directly for that perfect golden number now I hear what you're saying why should we care about all these rectangles and spirals and sequences well as I've already explained this is a number that's found all throughout nature and it's also within us but it's something that's buried in our minds we recognize it as visual harmony when we see it so it makes really good sense to compose our paintings using this perfect golden number and as soon as artists work this out they put it everywhere within their compositions a really good example of this is in Leonardo's painting the Annunciation just check out this image you can see the golden ratio here here and here now what if we wanted to use this within our painted how would we go about doing that now most of the time when we're painting a landscape we're gonna be working on a rectangle I know that there are some circles out there and even some weird and wonderful shapes like trapezoids and triangles and all of that but we're just going to talk about rectangles for now and it doesn't have to be a golden rectangle you can do this on any rectangle even a square so we have our height of any given painting and a length could be anything what we're going to do is we're going to take the length of that painting and we're going to multiply it by 0.618 it's important to multiply it by 0.618 and not 1.618 otherwise we're going to get a dimension off the canvas that's not going to help us very much so if I take whatever this is times it by point six one eight I'm gonna find a mark somewhere along there now if I drop this longing down that will be the golden ratio represented in this rectangle and it will show up as one is to one point six one eight now we can divide it up as well through the vertical plane so if I times that by point six one eight I'm gonna come up with a mark somewhere around there and we can scribe a line across now suddenly we have something very interesting happening if I come around from the opposite side and do the same again and again from the top do the same again now I've divided up my canvas in what I like to refer to as harmonic divisions or primary harmonic divisions now let me ask you something what is the most important line in a landscape the horizon where everything sits and this is the most common line that all used within my landscape paintings either that bottom line or that top line now I mentioned primary harmonic divisions that would infer that there would be such a thing as secondary harmonic divisions now if I took this dimension whatever that happens to be and multiply that by the golden ratio again I might come up with a line somewhere around there and another one somewhere around there and I could keep doing this and keep dividing this canvas up by the golden ratio and just keep going with it but generally I just carry it to the primary and then the secondary now if I don't use this line for my horizon line sometimes I'll even use that line now before I show you an example of how I use the golden ratio within a painting that I've recently finished that's here in the studio let me tell you about this videos sponsor Skillshare Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes across a multitude of topics from creative arts to design to even entrepreneurial skills Premium Membership gives you unlimited access so you can join the communities in the classes that are just right for you whether you want to feel your creativity your curiosity or even your career skill chair is a perfect place to keep you learning and thriving now personally I view Skillshare as you may know to up my Photoshop game I like to use digital design to compose some of my bigger paintings I learned how to use Photoshop directly from Skillshare and I started a class with Gabriel bricky I found this to be really informative recently I've been learning a little bit more about After Effects with a guy named Jake Bartlett and I've also found these classes to be really beneficial you guys are going to see the benefits of my learning with Skillshare and some of my upcoming videos Skillshare is also incredibly affordable compared to pricy in-person classes an annual membership cost less than $10 a month because Skillshare is sponsoring this video you can sign up with that link in the description and get yourself a two month free trial now here's my promise to you I'm only going to work with sponsors who have a product that I actually personally used and I can tell you right now I am a pain customer with Skillshare I simply love the platform and I'm learning all sorts of new things and some things that aren't even art related so make sure you check it out by clicking that link down below now let's get back to composition now I did mention that I've used the golden ratio loads in my paintings and I used it with this one recent project in particular what I was going for was this asymmetrical harmonious balance so let's jump over there to the other side of the studio and let's talk all about it so here is my recent painting I've just put the brushes down on this one and this is depicting milford sound here in the South Island of New Zealand now here's where I've used the golden ratio within this composition first I need to decide what's my focal point what is this painting about and for me the painting is all about mitre peak which you can see right here but I needed to make a decision about where to place the mountain where am I going to put it I've got all of this area here quite a big canvas as well I need to put it somewhere that it's gonna make sense visually and be harmoniously balanced so you guessed it I used the ratio I've measured across here one is two 1.618 and where that line gets drawn mitre peak goes straight through that primary harmonic division now it's talking earlier about a really important line within your landscape painting being the horizon line and where to place that and here I've placed it along one of those harmonic divisions but this time a secondary one now the golden ratio would occur somewhere around this point and it would run through here all across there but I felt this horizon would have been a little bit too high if it was placed one is to 1.618 so I took this dimension here multiplied it by the ratio again and dropped my horizon down a little bit lower so when I look at this painting I don't know about you but for me it works I've achieved it some sense of a symmetrical balance and it's only due to this mathematical ratio which shows up everywhere in nature now the golden ratio has quite an effect on me but I wasn't really aware of just how deep in my mind that number was buried I was in a thrift store recently and I found this beautiful little edging and I wasn't sure quite what it was about it but I just loved it and here it is here there was something about this edging that just had me captivated and then I worked out what it was now check this out look at the placement of this tree as I hold up these golden ratio calipers to the composition that tree is at a perfect one is to 1.618 but also let's observe here where the horizon is placed right there one is two 1.618 the same is true for the opposite side of the composition where that house in the distance is placed and this creates a really beautiful visual harmony within this picture it just works now over the years I've had a couple of other artists reproductions that were in my studio and again I wasn't quite sure why I loved these pictures so much but I've carried them with me everywhere and then it dawned on me you guessed it they also have the ratio in there now here in this corner of the studio I've got this print by Claude Lorrain and this one by constable and again the golden ratio was used by these guys so here in this Claude Lorrain painting you can see that the trees have their center of mass at that one is two 1.618 but also that horizon line there in the distance is that the one is two 1.618 as well and here in the John Constable painting check this out that tree there lands right bang on one is two 1.618 and that's exactly where he placed the horizon as well perfect balance so if you want to transform your paintings and you want to use a really cool mathematical proportion that shows up everywhere then try giving this a shot I guarantee you'll love the result employ this design technique and see where it takes your paintings now a huge thank you to this videos sponsor Skillshare if you want to find out more about skill share and take your skills further then make sure you click that link in the description down below now it's just a short little video this week I hope you've enjoyed it and if you did then make sure you hit that like button for me if you want to come back for more see more of my painting videos just like this one then make sure you subscribe to this channel as always you can find me on Instagram and Facebook but most important make sure you subscribe through my website at Andrew Tischler calm thanks so much for stopping by and I look forward to seeing you again soon

Channel: Andrew Tischler

Views: 281,080

Rating: 4.9541521 out of 5

Keywords: how to create a great composition, composition secrets, composition in art painting, Andrew Tischler composition, golden mean, golden mean ratio in art, golden ratio examples, creating great composition, composition in design, the golden ratio, fibonacci sequence, fibonacci in art, fibonacci, composition, how to compose a painting, how to compose, painting, landscape painting, how to paint a landscape, landscape painting tutorial

Id: wntIMD9wbR0

Length: 18min 42sec (1122 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 24 2019