Compositional Studies

As part of a class in Schoolism, the goal here was to simplify the complex pictures in three greyscale values, then elaborate with no limits on values but still greyscale, and finally finish it with color.

For those curious, the artists I studied, starting at the top and then going down: Craig Mullins, Thomas Dewing and Android Jones. The last one was obviously the most complex, and that's where I realized that I needed to keep the shapes of the composition more graphic.

This is something that I'm genuinely struggling on; it is said and repeated again that great artists have simple, elegant and graphical solutions to their compositions, however, my brain is way too conditioned in thinking on complex shapes. When I showed this study to a friend of mine, he mentioned there was a lot of repetition on circles and triangles in the third painting. I noticed the circles, wasn't sure how to abstract them, but triangles?!

So yeah, up to that point, I decided I needed to study composition. Daily. Until I get good at it, really good. I'm addicted to representation and rendering, and I'm not thinking about the design aspect, so there I go, stepping out of the comfort zone.

Now, what about you? How do you tackle compositional and design aspects, and how do you avoid the noise and focus on the graphical shapes?