The Rule of Thirds in Art: Guide for Professional Artists (2024)

FAQs

The Rule of Thirds in Art: Guide for Professional Artists? ›

The rule of thirds is a guideline for both artists and photographers. It says that if you divide your composition into thirds, either vertically or horizontally, and then place focal areas of your scene at the meeting points of them, you will get a more pleasing arrangement and layout for your compositions.

The Rule of Third splits an image into thirds vertically and horizontally, as shown in this grid. Artists will often separate the foreground and background content by using the horizontal lines. The overlapping areas indicated by the red circles are known as the focal points.

The rule of thirds is important because it creates a good balance between the elements in the frame. It helps you decide how much background and foreground are necessary for a visually appealing photograph. It also helps you manage the empty space, especially when your scene has plenty of it.

Here is an example of the rule of thirds for a landscape photo. The focus is on the land area rather than the sky so the bottom two-thirds of the photograph is filled with land and the top third is the sky.

The golden ratio is found when a line is divided into two parts such that the whole length of the line divided by the long part of the line is also equal to the long part of the line divided by the short part of the line.

Lastly, the Rule of Thirds allows for visual creativity and imagination. Your eyes immediately focus on the “Power points” of the image, allowing the brain take a visual journey through the rest of the scene.

While the rule of thirds works well for some photographs, it is not the only way to capture a good image. Indeed, any type of composition can be beautiful, and you will miss many opportunities if you never go beyond the rule of thirds.

The rule of thirds is a composition guideline that places your subject in the left or right third of an image, leaving the other two thirds more open. While there are other forms of composition, the rule of thirds generally leads to compelling and well-composed shots.

The rule of thirds fails when people start to use it as a guide to composition rather than a reminder that, sometimes, central composition doesn't work. There's no reason why this is the “rule of thirds” rather than the “rule of two sevenths” or the “rule of thirteen twenty-ninths” except that it's easier to remember.

The “rule of thirds” is a basic composition technique in photography and filmmaking. To follow it, imagine two equally spaced horizontal and vertical lines over your image, creating a grid with nine squares.

What is the simple rule of thirds in drawing? ›

The rule of thirds is a compositional guideline that suggests that the most important elements of a visual image should be placed on either the horizontal or vertical lines of thirds. In other words, imagine that there is a grid over the image that divides it into nine equal parts.

The rule of thirds is a compositional rule that suggests aligning your subject within specific guidelines and intersection points. The rule states that an image should be divided into nine equal parts with four imaginary lines. This involves two horizontal lines and two vertical lines, equally spaced.

The rule of thirds is a method of breaking up an image or design into different sections using columns and rows that form a grid. The grid consists of three evenly-spaced rows and columns to make nine equal boxes that fit over the image. The grid on your phone's camera is a great example of this.

It works like this: A third of the time, you will feel good. A third of the time, you will feel OK (not good, but not bad). A third of the time, you will perform poorly.

On your sheet of paper, draw four equally spaced lines to create nine areas on your paper, as seen below. This breaks the space into three horizontal and three vertical sections. The four points where the lines meet are visual “hot spots”— good areas to position things you want the viewer to focus on.

What is the rule of thirds in photography? The rule of thirds in photography is a guideline that places the subject in the left or right third of an image, leaving the other two thirds more open. It divides a photo into nine equal parts, split by two equally spaced horizontal and vertical lines.

Consider one of the most captivating paintings of all time, the Mona Lisa. Its creator, Leonardo da Vinci, used the rule of thirds by placing Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile exactly two-thirds up the painting.