

					Again, I used the strong foreground element. The water pump and bucket are used to both frame the field as well as give a sense of age and disrepair. This feeling is followed through in the actual structure of the building itself. The sway back roof bending under it’s own weight, the porch looking as though it’s about to collapse and the screen door discarded at the side. The overgrowth of the lawn also tells you that whoever is living here isn’t spending a lot of time keeping up appearances with the neighbors. I focussed my primary attention on the detailing of the pump and bucket as they are the closest objects to the viewer. The central focal point is the doorway to the shack. If you look at the layout, you’ll notice that I’ve used a spiral pathway to draw your attention to the door itself. It starts on the right side with the broken strut, moves down to the ground and connects to the pathway, connects to the rim
			of the bucket, moves in a clockwise direction up the pump to the roof of the shack, connects to the line on the top of the porch, down the left porch strut to the porch floor, over to the screen door up around and in to the doorway itself. Neat huh? And I didn’t just make all that up either. That’s exactly what I was thinking as I was drawing the thumbnail sketch. Spiral and radiating pathways are the most common types used in layout compositions. Try thinking about how you can use these in your own layouts as well. Preplan to incorporate them before you start to draw the thumbnail and then execute it in your sketches. You’ll be amazed at how much it helps your overall composition. It’s hard to do at first but you’ll get used to it and it’ll become second nature. Check out some famous paintings and see if you can discover some of the pathways used by them. It’s also used in eye direction in films quite frequently. Check out Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the early sequence where the Gypsies are originally caught by Frollo and Quasimodo’s mother runs away to the cathedral for sanctuary. Watch it a few times and then use your finger on the screen to trace where your eyes go in each scene. You’ll find that it flows quite nicely from one scene to the next, especially the handcuff scene.
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