A good composition makes the difference between a mediocre artwork and your attractive, eye-catching drawing. So once you find out online how to draw, it is vital to learn some fundamental ability about composition and its guidelines.
Guiding Factor 1: Balanced Pictures
A good way to ensure that your composition is balanced is to judge your drawing as a scale. If there is a touch on the right, you must have something to bring equilibrium on your left. If there is a lot happening on in the top half of the picture, you need something to balance it in the bottom half of the picture.
If you don't balance your composition the viewer's eye will be drawn out of the picture, instead of into the picture. As an artist you want to keep the viewer looking at your work for as long as possible.
You can use objects, or tone, or color to balance a drawing. If you include dark areas, lighter areas must also be used to balance it; big objects in a drawing can be well-adjusted by slighter fine objects or by similarly large objects.
Another way to create balance in your work is to make sure that you do not have the major objects in your drawing too near to the edge. Alternatively, having the prime focus in the centre can produce a lackluster composition.
You can get symmetrical balance (top and bottom or left and right are equivalent - resembling a mirror image) or unsymmetrical. Symmetrical balance is more easy to accomplish, but asymmetrical balance is more attractive.
Guideline 2: Discover Pleasing Compositions
There are a number of ways to create pleasing compositions but you will probably find that as you gain experience, creating a pleasing composition will become second nature. You'll have learned then to adjust any picture's composition with ease.
While initiating on drawing lessons, noticing and re-creating satisfying compositions can be done easily instead of creating them from scratch. One of the most useful tools in creating a enjoyable composition is a view finder.
Cut 2 pieces of cardboard having L-shape and grip them together to get a rectangular shaped frame. Then hold that frame amidst yourself and the picture you will be sketching and move it around until you find an interesting and pleasing composition.
This is the drawing corresponding of 'zooming-in' when taking a snap and it will help to make certain that you do not include too many particulars in your drawing. You can also apply the viewfinder to ensure that the format you make use of (landscape or portrait) will match the topic of your drawing.
Guideline 3: Make Pleasing Compositions
If you are qualified with experience it is logical to try to create scenes to have a satisfying composition.
So you can organize scenes which have depth, for example, scenes having a foreground, middle ground and background. Overlap some of the objects to emphasize this depth. An odd quantity of things is often more pleasant than an even number, like asymmetry is generally more appealing than symmetry.
You could try applying the 'Rule of Thirds' to make sure that your composition is not extremely static or uninteresting. Using an assortment of shapes and textures and noting negative space (the space around your item/s) will also avoid your drawing from being uninteresting and static. Also beware of objects that seem to just touch as this can be disturbing. Objects should overlap or there should be space available between them to avert this kind of disturbance.