Mohamed  Hirji

Fine Art

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Shapes - From Boring To Interesting- Part 1

Aug 5, 2018

 On one of my previous blogs, I discussed shapes that tend to be boring. One of them was a square shaped building seen below. Here I discuss some tips to change this shape to a more interesting shape or select one that is more captivating.

Square Shaped Building

If one were intent in painting a square building, one could change its dimensions to a rectangular shape, so only two rather than the four sides would be equal.


Alternately, one could in a painting, include the side of the square building, (three quarter view) so that the shape would be more interesting. The roof of the side of the house now has a slope, an oblique thrust which is different than the rest of the outlines. Remember a shape is the outline of the entire object, in this case the whole building.

Three quarter view of square building.

Or why not choose to add a triangular roof and a chimney to the square shape and make it even more interesting? The structures that protrude into a shape or out of a shape like dormers, chimneys, spires, minarets have been called interlocking incidents by a very famous artist called Tony Couch. These slows down the eye flow and enables the viewer to spend more time looking at the paintings.

A triangular roof, chimney and other incidents on a square building.

In the following image, almost every line is different in length and every angle is slightly different also the shapes are different in size and some are angular whereas some are curved. Most of us will agree that one would study this image a lot longer than the square building at the top of the page. This essentially is the purpose. If this were a painting than the viewer will look at this for a lot longer and be intrigued by it.

A House with varying shapes, lines, sizes and angles.

If one was really ambitious a building with lots of intricate shapes and incidents like the VIA Rail station in Quebec City would make a terrific painting. One however would have to simplify it a lot to prevent it from looking too busy.

VIA Rail Station, Quebec City.

 Any questions? Just drop in a line.  Your opinions regarding the usefulness of these blogs would be valuable as well. 


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Mohamed Hirji