2D Composition Assignments

[robin-eleven]

I've just entered my second week of my 2D Composition class and I can already tell it's going to be a bit of a joke.

Our syllabus states that our assignments are to be made out of magazines,photos, newspaper cutouts etc.etc.

To be made into a collage.

Now this would be a good assignment maybe......once.

But not every week for a whole semester.

The good part is that the 'collage' can be made up of whatever we want it to be done in any medium.

So now i'm extending my pitiful plea to the world....


What assignments did you have in your 2D composition class?

Please share.

I'm a freshman and I have NO basis on which to work from. But I know that I don't want to waste a semester making magazine collages......every day.

[emily g]

One of my assignments for 2-D composition was to punch a whole lot of holes out of black paper with a hole punch, then to glue those circles onto squares of white paper in interesting "compositions."

Another one was to design a "shape" then to repeat that shape larger and smaller and fill the paper, but make it into an interesting composition.

A third was to pick a simple shape, and then make 20 small artworks that all used that shape as a major feature, but they all had to be different.

I had quite a lot of silly assignments like this my first and second year of school. But it was all ok once I got to the third year and we started doing better assignments in the more advanced classes.

[the_allejo05]

real composition is hard to do..it takes a lot of mastery..mostly concerned with the geometric structure of a painting..it is far more important than just tonal composition (the placing of tones,dark and light,and even color)..some artists have a natural talent for composing..they just know where to put things in place to make it work..
my recomendations would be start with simple element placing like still lifes that will get you thinking ..also looking and analysing other artists works in term of placing of shapes..(what the playing with paper is trying to do), get a book on composition, to learn some basic principles, also look at movies..how the shots are done..the lighting ,etc..the best compostions are obviously the old classical art..where all the elements are beautifully tied together...oh for learning geometry..get a book on constructive geometry to get you started on this subject which is the true root of everything (and thank Euclid for it ).