Here is my first painting of some flowers I saw along a path in Naperville, Illinois. It's a small painting 5 x 10 inches. I discovered something interesting creating this painting. It is that the flowers which punctuate the green background create an arc. A spiral of pink that only needed slight enhancement by me.
Here is another version with slight variation from the earlier painting. In this painting the flowers create a circular shape that leads the viewers eye. Once again nature only needed slight enhancement from me. I guess my point is that there is a natural rythym (did I spell that right?) to nature, that tends to flow in circles, spirals, ovals, etc. Straight lines seem to never exist in the natural world, only in the man made one. (So the old saw "I can't draw a straight line" should never keep a person from pursuing art if they feel the urge to do so. In fact, I doubt any human being evem Michelangelo could draw a perfectly straight line, without the aid of a ruler.)
So to get back to the main point of this post, when composing a painting of the natural world, look for the circular rythyms ( I always have trouble spelling rythym) that are everywhere in the seeming randomness.
Can you see the organic swirl, almost "S" shape leading the eye to the flower in this painting?
Or the spirals in this one.
Remember the circular rythym (there's that spelling problem again, I should invest in a dictionary) and randomness of nature when you paint. It will give your paintings a lifelike quality.
