Composition moves the eye through the elements in an illustration and eventually to a desired destination or focal point. This visual journey of seeing is what creates the perception of a narrative or meaning in an illustrative image.
Composition is an organizing principle of form, relating the formal elements, and their corresponding meanings, one to another into a perceptive closure.
It accomplishes this acting as visual syntax creating a hierarchy of formal elements in importance, as well as an ordering or sequencing of the individual meaning of the objects, leading to a interpretation and understanding.
Composition by Andrew Loomis
Andrew Loomis was a great American illustrator who wrote a series of instructional books in the 1940s and 50s.
He was known not only for how well he could render objects, but perhaps more so for his knowledge of composition.
You can upload a full copy of his book Creative Illustration, which is copyright free, on the web at: www.alexhays.com/loomis/Andrew%20Loomis%20-%20Creative.Illustration.pdf.
