Dow's page of eight small brush sketches in black and white: a sailboat, trees by water, a road, a house among trees and a tall-masted ship, each a quick two-value study.

Concept · Putting It Together

Checking a Composition

Painters check a design by making it look strange: small, reversed, upside down or far away.

Dow told students to "make many trial arrangements" and keep the best; small two-value sketches are quick to compare.

  • Leonardo advised a mirror: reversed, a picture looks like another painter's work, so faults show.
  • Poore adds viewing from different distances and turning the picture upside down.
  • Neuroscientist Margaret Livingstone suggests the mirror and upside-down tricks work by stripping away depth cues, so you see flat shapes.

See

Image: Project Gutenberg · Public domain

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