Hello Reader,

A couple of weeks ago, I took my first stab at setting up my container display. I stepped back and thought, 'After all the time spent lime washing pots and picking out plants, the display looked awful'.

Since I was styling a shelf, I turned to interior designers for help. I found an article with examples of how to set up interesting vignettes using the triangle principle.

After reading about the visual triangle, took a photograph of the container display and studied it, hoping to see why it didn't look quite right.

I had unknowingly placed the rust-colored plants in a straight line across the same shelf. Right away I could see it.

As I researched this concept of triangular composition, I learned that religious paintings during the Renaissance relied on this principle. You can see it in Raphael's Madonna in the Meadow (1505-1506). You can feel how your eyes move from the Madonna in the center to the figures of Christ and Saint John the Baptist along the bottom. Raphael learned this compositional principle from Leonardo Da Vinci.

I tried again. This time I focused on the visual triangle. I grouped the rust-colored coleus into bigger groups to attract your eye.

It looked better. Still not perfect, but grouping objects into a visual triangle gives me a framework. That is incredibly helpful.

​
Sue