The picture plane defines the edges of the art work - what falls within its boundaries is part of the art, what is outside is not. The idea is to get the viewer to enter the picture plane and stay there for awhile.

That isn’t happening yet. The eye glances at this space for a moment, but has no reason to linger, because nothing engages it. It’s bored.

The blue picture plane is static and still boring. The eye goes there by chance and glance (maybe its very favorite color happens to be blue), hangs out for a moment longer than if there was no color, and leaves to look for something more exciting.

There are many ways to create movement in the picture plane, and one of them is using the fact that the eye wants to move from dark to light. It also likes to travel from left to right and can even be bounced off objects like a tennis ball in whichever direction we choose, but for now, this simple dark to light preference will suffice to illustrate the point.

You can feel it for yourself by glancing quickly at the two picture planes to the left (Remember to include only what is inside the borders - not the type underneath.) In A, your eye moves from top to bottom, and in B, from upper left to lower right - - following the light. Simple, but such a powerful tool to have at our disposal.

By the way, exactly where did your eye enter those two picture planes? Is it harder to tell on A than on B? That is because the darkest corner in B actually creates a rudimentary point of entry (focal point).

While we’re at it, where did your eye exit? Most probably, somewhere out the bottom of A, and out the bottom right corner of B. Why? It is led there by the light and there’s nothing to stop it‘s travel.

How long did it stay within the picture frame? Not long, right? Just a slide through?

Now, take a look at Picture Plane C. What’s the difference between it and B? Your eye didn’t get to slide out that bottom right corner so fast, did it? It hung around a little longer when it ran into the darker corner, and then exited either to the Northeast or Southwest - again, following the light. Most likely, it exited Northeast because the eye also likes to move left to right.

Hopefully, you are starting to get the “feeling” of movement in the picture plane. This understanding is critical to good design.

When you look at Picture Plane D, you can feel a difference in the experience. Your eye is still following the light, but the lightest spot is in the center of the plane and there is no obvious exit. The eye is held within the picture plane longer.

This brings us very close to the “center of interest” concept, otherwise known as the focal point. The focal point is determined by emphasizing it in some way to make it stand out from everything else in the picture plane. In this simplest example, the center of Plane D is lighter than anything else around it. It catches, and holds the eye.

Your homework: Go over this page until you can actually feel what your eye is doing when you look at these different picture planes. This is a most important step in learning to arrange movement in your art on purpose - and by instinct. Meanwhile, try incorporating the fact that the eye moves from dark to light in some of your compositions. You don’t need to use simple color fields as we did, just darker and lighter images - see if by their arrangement on the page, you can dictate the eye’s movement in whatever direction you choose.

Stampers may want to stamp the same image multiple times on a page, coloring each one a little darker to direct the sequence in which the eye experiences them. Maybe a row of flowers or a bunch of cats.