Visual flow within a painting is an important principle to use to make your paintings have a journey-like quality to them. Everyone loves stories. I’m particularly intrigued by stories that take me on (1) an adventure to live, where there’s (2) a battle to fight and or (3) a beauty to rescue.

These three themes are ever present in just about every great novel and movie.

When coming to a scene to paint, ask yourself, Where is the story?

• Where’s the adventure to live?
• What’s the battle to fight?
• Who’s my beauty to rescue?

Answers to these questions will start an internal dialog that will get you moving in a strong, regular, and repeated pattern of movement. This is the rhythm. And for your movement and rhythm to be as effective as possible, it may also require areas of rest and quiet. These quiet zones are important not just to give the viewer’s eyes a quiet place to rest, but to also act as a foil to make these movements and rhythms even more effective. Again, it’s all about these relationships.

Movement and Mood:

“Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.” ~ Vincent van Gogh

This quote from Vincent van Gogh sums up perfectly his life as an artist and the paintings he made. Anyone seeing his work sees into his life and struggles, and we ourselves are transported and moved by them. When you feel this movement happening, let it. When you feel this movement happening in your own work, let it.

Irises by Vincent-van-Gogh Created: in 1889 Oil on Canvas in Saint-Rémy, France

Size: 74.3 × 94.3 cm (29 1/4 × 37 1/8 in.) Currently at the Getty Museum.

For more information on this painting, visit https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/826/vincent-van-gogh-irises-dutch-1889/

Click on the related media tab and listen to the various audio descriptions of this painting.

Lines are a great design element tool to use to communicate your mood and feelings about a particular scene. Your connection to your mood is made through your mindfulness. By pulling these lines across your canvas, your mood will also be transferred to your canvas through your lines. We learned about Line earlier. Here’s a recap.

Diagonal Movements – Depict and transfer feelings of Growth, Drama, Energy

Vertical Movements – Depict and transfer feelings of Passion, Nobility, Musicality

Horizontal Movements – Depict and transfer feelings of Tranquility, Calm, Rest

Spiral Movements – Depict and transfer feelings of Expansion and Contraction

Curving Movements – Depict and transfer feelings of Whimsy, Adventure, Exploration, Discovery

Starburst Movements – Depict and transfer feelings of Freshness, Newness, Progression

Rhythm:

Rhythm is a principle of art that refers to the repeating patterns or repetition of color shapes that may follow a particular line through the piece.

I’ll use the rhythm of shapes to create additional harmonies throughout the piece. Typically, this is a color and a value that appears in one area of a painting that I want in additional parts, to create deeper connections and flow and movement toward my center of interest.

Dear Reader, I hope by now you are seeing the interconnectedness of all these Design Elements and Principles. It’s your knowledge of these various Elements and Principles, and the degree in which you use them in your art, that will determine the connectedness of your paintings to connect you with your story, and connect your art to your viewers and potential buyers.