Episode 153: Painting Composition Mistakes: Why Your Art Feels Off (And How to Fix It)
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Why should artists consider attending an in‑person workshop?
Artists will spend hundreds of dollars on supplies that they may never use, but they'll hesitate to do the one thing that could actually transform their work, which is taking a workshop. Yeah, you can watch lots of tutorials online, but you can't raise your hand and get real-time feedback or feel the energy of the room with the other artist or have someone help you break through that one thing that's keeping your work stuck that you might not even need. No. So that's the magic of an in-person workshop. And I just released seats to my next workshops. They sell out very quickly. I would love to meet you and help you transform your work. You can find out more at the link in the show notes. Welcome back to the Honest Art Podcast, everyone.
I'm your host, Jodie King. I'm super excited about this episode because we are gonna talk about composition, but we're gonna talk about it in a way that I haven't heard other people talk about it before. Um, and here's the thing: is if you've been painting for a little while, or if you've listened to my episode on composition. You you know about the things like the rule of thirds and focal points. Um um you know that you need to like have some negative space. Like you know like the technical things about composition, but we're gonna talk about composition in a new way. And we're gonna talk about it in a way like What is it about composition that can actually distract from your paintings? By that I mean that
You can be very skilled in your work, right? You can um feel very confident in your work. Um, and your work may be beautiful. And I I'm saying this with love, by the way, because I used to do this as well. Our work may be beautiful, but there is some point that that happens where we can take it just a little too far. Like We we can be so intentional, like say having balance, that occasionally our work can be, yeah, it can be balanced and and have all of those compositional elements, but it can be emotionally flat. And we don't want that. We want our art to say something. Yes, some art feels like um it like it's a whisper. But sometimes art needs to just clear its throat a little bit and say, Hey, I've got something to say here.
And so that's what we're gonna talk about, how composition can give that to us. So if you're ready, let's get messy. Yeah. Okay, so composition is so much more than where we place things. Okay. Uh I know that's what we talk about mostly and sometimes we also talk about composition as the dance of the opposites, which I love that analogy because that is what keeps me just remembering, hey, I need to do I have too much of this and let's change that up a little bit. Um If we take it a step further We can think of composition as like what matters most um in the composition and if you've worked with me in a workshop before uh and you feel like you're stuck, one of the things that I always talk about is when we you're like I you know, and I've done this in my own work as well.
Um, but it's like when I get stuck, I I always like to think, okay Where Where in that painting, like what do I like best about this painting? And I'll I'll focus on like That's what I like best. But then that, you know, in that's in terms of like to me, that's what matters in that moment. You know, it's a it's a long game when you're painting a painting, but we're just taking this moment by moment.
How does Jodie redefine composition beyond the rule of thirds and focal points?
So in that moment, this is what feels like what matters. And so then I think, okay, hold on, I'm gonna go back into this. Where in the painting, where's my least favorite part of the painting? And so from that perspective, I'm thinking, um Well, Well, that doesn't matter. Okay. So it's this conversation with the painting that you go back back and forth. And so compositionally we're thinking about what is it that we want uh what is it that we want to emphasize? Um, what is it that we want to remove? How much tension is there? And if there's no tension at all, maybe that's not. a good thing. Like maybe you want to do something that creates a little tension. And by tension I mean that can be created with values or that can be just created with something like out of the blue that you want to do because
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
Why should artists consider attending an in‑person workshop?
0:00–4:01
2
How does Jodie redefine composition beyond the rule of thirds and focal points?
4:01–10:18
3
What problems arise when a painting is over‑resolved and too “pretty”?
10:18–18:17
4
How can “people‑pleasing” composition strip a painting of its power?
18:17–21:53
5
What audit questions can help you spot the most and least important parts of a work?
21:53–23:49
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Honest Art Podcast with Jodie King
Episode 161: Why Perfecting Your Art First Is Stalling Your Career
Episode 160: 6 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Investing in Your Art Business
Episode 159: Turning Grief Into Gold: One-on-One Coaching with Erika Person
Episode 158: What Five Years in Tuscany Taught Me About Betting on Yourself
Episode 157: How to Build Real Buzz Around Your Art (Without Chasing the Algorithm)
Episode 156: The Layering Mistake That's Making Your Abstract Art Look Flat (And How to Fix It)