why is just Gestalt theory important you ask well if you know just Gestalt Theory you'll be able to
suggest ideas without drawing them yes my friends this is the secret sauce to artistic mastery and
there are nine of them first of all though let's talk about the elements of principles
because I want to go over those just in case so the elements of art there is seven of them line
space color shape is one form texture value at seven as the elements of art the principles of
design there's eight technically there's ten but we combined four balance contrast
movement rhythm and repetition emphasis unity variety unity we have grouped with harmony
proportions if you don't remember your elements of art or principles of design we have an entire
playlist where I explain them in detail and try to be funny so I'll link them in the description
for you to watch next so these are your principles of design your principles of design are the stuff
that make your artwork feel better so think of your elements as like your nouns they're the
nouns of your artwork right it's the what is in there what are the objects what are the things
think of your principles as your adjectives your adjectives your verbs right it's the things that
make those nouns move makes them work makes them interesting so we know the elements of art we know
the principles is a design did you know there's a third one Gestalt theory this is the weird one if
our elements of art are our nouns our principles of design are adjectives and verbs Gestalt theory
is our context when we have a sentence you can say a sentence whenever the heck you want you can have
as many nouns and verbs and adjectives in there as you want however if you have all those nouns
and adjectives and you don't have any context behind it that sentence still feels meaningless so
Gestalt theory is that context behind what we do so Gestalt theory is how we utilize our elements
and principles of art to make sense within human perception it's how we perceive things and how to
make art make sense the funny thing about Gestalt theory is that you absolutely know almost every
single bit of Gestalt Theory it's just now we're putting definitions when I learned Gestalt theory
for the first time I was like I've never heard of Gestalt theory in my life and every single piece
of Gestalt Theory I was like oh yeah I figured but I didn't know it had a name right that's
kind of how Gestalt theory feels when you learn for the first time so let's talk about Gestalt
Theory there's a bunch of them I'm only going to go over the ones that I think are the most
relevant so the first one is proximity so things that are closer together are seen as a group
if we've got one little huddling together a bunch of beans on one side then we've
got another little huddling together of another group of beans on another side this bean group
feels like one group this being groups feels like another group even if we draw them as a
bunch of different shapes say if I threw some squares in there right there right we got a
bunch of squares maybe some other stars you know whatever same deal over here maybe there's some
spirals triangle or two they're all different elements but because of their proximity we see
this one as one group you see this one as another group that's kind of how we think of proximity
second thingy similarity things that are similar are grouped regardless of proximity so if we've
got a whole sea of like blue dots and let's say if we got a bunch of these little blue dots but then
we have two red dots this one's red this one's red they're not close to each other but automatically
our brains like oh yeah those two red dots those are grouped together they're similar therefore
they are this they are within the same group if I kind of toss some other colors in there
if I tossed a couple green dots got one up here one down here and now we see those green dots is
another group regardless of how close they are together I kind of toss another one over here
now this feels unbalanced because the group is off to the side so I've got to put another one
over here regardless things that are similar to one another are grouped regardless of proximity
even if they're far away if we've got a sea of stuff that's really similar and then we've got
like two little dots on the sides that feel a bit strange or that's our similarity next is symmetry
and order so this one requires a little bit more a bit more explanation so symmetry in order creates
consistency stability and structure even numbers equal symmetry odd numbers equal asymmetry so use
this at your own discretion think of a composition the amount of objects that you see within a
composition let's think of the numbers four and the numbers five first so if we have four dots
kind of like this this is perfectly symmetrical in a way where we think like oh yeah this four
equals symmetry because you can say that half the composition has two of the dots the other half has
the other two dots all right so it creates a sense of symmetry if we have odd numbers so if you have
number five this creates a bit more asymmetry now we have more of a focal point because it's
not like we can split this in perfect tabs without cutting one of the elements in half but then that
if we cut it in half creates the number six so if we want something with a stronger focal point it's
better to use asymmetry because using even numbers tends to create too much symmetry which can create
monotony so it's usually better to have asymmetry within our works especially when it comes to
composition next thing we're doing is continuation this is elements that move eyes across across a
comp I'm just going to say comp it's short for composition so this deals with leading lines
and movement and this is how to add focal points envision for a me a spiral if we start at one end
of the spiral it'll be slowly spiraled towards the center that's continuation our eyes will continue
that spiral until we get to the center for whatever our little focal point is another
easy way for continuation we have our little focal point we got a bunch of arrows these arrows our
brain automatically continues the arrows to go towards wherever they're pointing right
the spiral one is a bit more fun though yeah continuation is how the elements move our eyes
across a composition this will allow you to create movement continuation is the context for movement
so a lot of the times we need continuation in order for movement to work leading lines and
that kind of deal closure this one's my favorite one so closure is the idea that our brains will
finish an incomplete shape using context clues right so our brain will automatically complete
shapes if given enough context right so let me draw you a little picture a little straws
if you'd like to support the channel in the creation of free arts education become a member
on patreon cool okay I did not draw in the suit but you still kind of know what he's doing you can
tell me the action if I asked you what action is he doing right now you would tell me he's saying
hello he is waving he's waving right his arms bent right over here the other one's probably just
straight down well we can kind of anvision that right I haven't completed it I haven't completed
the illustration but you kind of know and that's what closure is is the idea that you can finish
stuff even without giving the full context this next one's also kind of fun this next one is
called common fate it sounds like a final a final move in an RPG all right so things that are moving
in the same direction they automatically feel grouped together so this one overrides proximity
all right the best way to describe this is if you think of birds right I'm not gonna actually
draw birds I'm gonna draw some like less than more than signs when you think of birds you know
how they all kind of go in one direction so all the birds will kind of make this v formation and
they automatically feel grouped together if there are somehow a bunch of other birds around going
in the opposite direction these birds that are going in the opposite direction despite them not
being in a group feel grouped together because they're going in the same direction these guys
are close together but are also all going in the same direction regardless though the birds that
are going birds quote unquote that are going in the opposite direction also feel grouped because
they are going all in the the same wait so this kind of helps like if you've seen any like really
traditional paintings of like like Noah's Ark right where all the animals kind of go onto the
ark or whatever everything that goes along the same path despite them all being different they
all feel grouped together because of their common fate past experience based on previous knowledge
the brain will complete images can you read this you can read this the used before as I can um but
yes hello you can read this you can read that because you're given the first and last letter
of every single word not all the letters are on the inside but you know enough about it where you
can still read the sentence so that sentence is you filling in the blanks based on what you know
very similar to closure but this one's a bit just slightly different it's what you already
understand and what you have known based on experience common region elements that are grouped
together if they are within a comfined area right so this one overrides every single other group
instruction every single one has nothing on common region if I take a bunch of bunch of little dots
let's draw a bunch of dots first and then if I took some squares and I sprinkled them in there
let's pretend that these squares are perfectly fine and they're not terrible looking unless I got
some triangles filling in the rest of the space as random as the random as my human brain can go
right just placing a bunch of random shapes around but if I just went like that now that section of
shapes feels grouped compared to everything else it feels ISO related from the rest of
the shapes that I have drawn and this is because it is common region they're using common regions
now they are all within a singular point so this is a strategy that you use a lot compositionally
the common region is the strongest grouping one all right last one this is the last one element
connectedness so items connected by line or other elements will be grouped right so things that
are connected by line will be grouped here's an example that's less like shapey and abstract say
if I were to like draw a house on a straw house this is a beautiful house wow and then I've got
like if I got like a big dinosaur they've got a dinosaur and then maybe there's a tree and there's
somebody flipping out there's a dinosaur in their front yard and then there's a car somewhere my
weakness of vehicle shows anyway we got all these objects they don't really make a lot of
sense right not 100% connected in any real way but let me throw a horizon line in there now it all
feels like they're within the same space this line creates element connectedness because now it feels
as though they're all within the same confined space all right so element connectedness maybe
we'll have some bushes back here too and this also helps the elements feel connected so this
helps create a scene element connectedness is how we create scenes in a way items that are connected
by line or other elements will be grouped join a virtual class to learn live from our professional
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