The edges of your canvas or paper are the four most important lines you’ll be using.

One of the overall arching concepts found in most of these Design Principles is the idea that our shapes look better when no two increments are the same.

The tendency for us humans, as we live in symmetrical architecture, is fighting the symmetry forces at play. This is hard to do, being that as we are human beings, we love our symmetry. Nature is asymmetric, that’s why it’s so beautiful. Now, unless your painting is symmetrical (very Human), then the play of shapes may well be very balanced from one side to the next. But nature is rarely symmetrical. This play on symmetry and asymmetry can be something your work or style strives for. Something akin to Humans in Nature or Nature vs Human themes.

Boundaries, as our first design principle, often uses this “no two increments” the same concept. Practically speaking, where your shapes enter and leave the borders of your paper or canvas, make these increments uneven, relative to other shapes entering and leaving your canvas. So instead of looking at the shape you’ve just made, look at the increment of space your shape made as it touches the edge of your canvas. Now ask yourself, is this shape a different size then the shape on either side if it?

Do more like this                                                                       Avoid this

Shapes coming close to the edges of your canvas also pose a problem when it comes time to frame the piece. Shapes, such as roofs of buildings with just barely ¼” clearance of sky over rooftop, look okay as we paint, but once framed, the edge of the frame now covers that ¼” sky and you’ve created an unplanned tangent that’s capturing all the attention from your painting’s true center of interest.

On Trees: Trees are often treated as shapes appearing too close to the edges of our panels.  These tree shapes, that are often painted totally within the boundaries of the canvas, tend to give a claustrophobic feeling to the painting.  Perhaps a better design choice is to take edges of these trees off the panel and leave this tree shape as a nice quiet, restful framing area and a good foil to let your center of interest really take the spotlight.

On Corners: The corners of a painting are a natural tangent already, so be careful not to add any shapes that add additional interest that can lead the eye off the canvas. Use most of your corners as quiet zones. Next time you’re looking at art that captures your attention, look at how that artist treated their corners and take note. Typically, depending on the subject, I like my corners to have a middle or dark value. I also like a 1/3 ratio of 1 light corner and 3 dark corners. A 2/2 ratio of 2 light and 2 dark corners is too balanced for my personal preference, but then again, the scene, subject, and center of interest will dictate your overall designs and corner treatments.