Zed A. Shaw, Painter

I've been doing this new thing where I draw the amature of the rectangle on a canvas, then just draw everything in a still life as if it mostly fits in there already. Totally works for still life paintings since nobody actually knows what the original scene looked like, BUT:

I don't quite understand this. You draw a rectangle on the canvas and then expand beyond it in the actual painting? Does this help with composition?

The canvas is already some kind of rectangle. Most people use a simple composition method called "rule of 3rds" where you divide it in a 1/3rd grid, then put stuff at the intersections. The AotR is where you draw guiding lines from corners and edges: http://www.dynamicsymmetryart.com/the-armature-of-the-rectangle.html …