Focus on your centre of interest

Unless very abstract every painting would benefit from a focal point or centre of interest. The trick is make sure your chosen focal point doesn't melt into the backround.

In many pictures the focal point will be obvious. It's probably why you chose that particular subject to paint. Take the photo on the left: what else apart from the rowing boats could you choose as your focal point?

Losing one boat to avoid competition or toning down the colours on the lighter boat to lessen the rivalry might help. It's your decision.

The fishing boat on the right sits in the centre and is clearly the focal point, but could you improve the emphasis?
Rendering the boats on either side with no detail will help, even to the point where they are just silhouettes. Toning down or changing completely the red on the left hand boat and giving the man in the boat a red hat or coat will draw the eye from the side and towards the centre. Keep the warmth and the interest where you want it.

The choice of subject always helps. For example, when painting this photo of Fingle Bridge it would be difficult to justify any other focal point. But is that it? Job done and on with the painting? Definitely not. The blanket over the fence needs to go. It doesn't fit into the scene and it drags the eye away from the bridge. Even the fence would be rendered better if you drew the posts a different size, varied the angles and considered losing one of the horizontal lengths.  Try to avoid symmetry and repetition and offer variety wherever possible.

The branch leaning to the right is also a distraction. It blocks the passage of the eye towards the bridge. Move it, lose it, spiritually give it the chop. Whatever you do eradicate it from your painting. If you decide to leave it the red or brown tinged leaves sprouting from the top will need to be toned down - red is a magnet - and what about the three pronged root at bottom left? Does its presence help? To help you make your own mind up the photo on the right shows the removal of the offending bits of wood. OK, it's not the smoothest makeover ever performed, but it's good enough to show the difference. The choice is yours, but make that choice before you start. Don't regret it afterwards.

Let's consider the interesting conundrum on the right. The Anchor Bleu pub is the centre of interest, but look at the lead in. It splits two ways, one either side of the focal point. An art critic would turn boss eyed and apoplectic in equal measure if you painted it this way. So how do you tackle the problem? One way would be to redefine the layout of the road. Instead of giving both directions equal rights you will have to act as the local council and turn the right hand banch into a side street with an unmade and very bland surface. Another tried and tested device is the sweep of darker colour along the centre of the road. Use this as an arrow to point the eye along the left hand side and past the road on the right.

In this photo the centre building would seem to be the focal point. You would just need to apply the rule of thirds for good composition (never have the focal point dead centre). You even have plenty of lines highlighting the barn by pointing straight towards it. Trouble is, the barn seems small and insignificant when compared with the dark wall on the right or the wooden fence on the left. Your first step would be to lighten the wall, lose a lot of the detail and subdue the colour. This will take it down a peg in the hierarchy. The wooden fence could be lost completely, the foreground simplified and the car driven off around the corner. You won't necessarily need to darken the focal point; just warm it up a bit and use cooler colours for the other buildings and that should give the centre barn all the emphasis it needs.

If an object is blurred and you want to see it properly you adjust the focus. This works as well in painting as it does in photography. Highlighting the focal point blurs the rest of the painting. Click on the thumbnail left and you will see what I mean. Vignetting uses a different method to achieve the same effect.

The centre of interest in this photo is undeniably the man with the red jumper. If you were to paint this photo you might want to move him slightly to the right to adhere a little more strictly to the rule of thirds priinciple, but you probably get away with leaving him where he is.

It is often a good idea, and rarely a bad one, to repeat a colour or object elsewhere is a painting. Make sure your echo is less prominant though. The faded red on the other pedestrian is enough to add interest without detracting from the focal point.

Does the blue tractor in this photo detract from the focal point or does it become one? It's driving out of the photo, so will lead the eye directly off the edge. But if it was facing the other way would or could it become a focal point?

It's very small compared to the metal water 'trough', but would that matter?

I'll let you decide.