Artwork collage

Prof. Lefeld

Collage Assignment

Maxine Martinez

Composition in art refers to ______(define composition here)______. This collage represents an imaginary landscape, abstracted, and constructed froma variety of colorful magazine cutouts. Several compositional elements are identifiable such as the visual elements color, shape, and implied texture. Also present in the collage are three design principles such as scale, balance and variety.

The use of a vivid palette is made by combiningwarm and cool colors in certain areas. There is a play between analogous harmonies, and a complementary group of colors. For example, the color of the flower in the top left contrasts with the top right red ‘clouds’. Green is the complementary color of red, even though there is an area of blue separating both, by placing these in proximity it creates a tonal variety of hues. Green is analogous to yellow, there is less contrast on the left-hand size of the collage. Certain colors like the yellow in the chrysanthemum, the top blue area, the orange on the right-hand side, and the image of the lake are highly saturated.The shapes are mostly organic, following the contours of certain objects such as the tree, leaves, plants, etc. Each element shows an image implyingdifferent textures. The flower petals seem smooth, while the leaves on the agave shows thorns that evoke much different tactile quality.

The tree is much smaller in scale than the rest of the objects, although the horses at the bottom right are proportionate to the tree. It uses asymmetrical balance, and emphasis on the yellow chrysanthemum as a point of entrance to the artwork. The variety of forms, colors, shapes, etc. help in making a dynamic composition. The composition seems stable, and aesthetically pleasing even if it has asymmetrical balance, since the visual weight of the yellow flower finds great visual counterbalance in the top clouds, and the solid bright green organic shape in the bottom right.