Seeing the Shape of the Work
Before colour sings or texture adds depth, there is something quieter holding the whole piece together: shape.
It’s the foundation beneath every composition. The outlines, silhouettes, patterns, and spaces that give a piece its structure long before we notice its details.
In our DesignPlus groups, Shape is often the moment of real clarity.
👉 Join a free DesignPlus Discovery Call
Artists begin to see that everything they make ~ stitched, felted, painted, or collaged ~ is built from shapes relating to each other. Once they notice this, the work begins to feel intentional rather than accidental.
Shape is where design becomes visible.
Why Shape Comes Before Detail
It’s natural to want to jump straight into the expressive parts of making - colour choices, mark-making, texture, embellishment. But design grows strongest when we begin with the structure.
Even a simple block of shape can create:
Balance: where the eye rests
Rhythm: what repeats and what changes
Movement: the pathway through the piece
Tension: contrast between big/small, curved/angular
Focus: which area has visual weight
When shape works, everything else works with it.
When shape feels unresolved, no amount of colour or detail can “fix” a piece.
Playing With Shape
We often start with the simplest materials: cut papers, fabric scraps, offcuts of felt, chalk on a sketchbook page.
By moving shapes around ~ adding, removing, rotating, layering ~ artists begin to see how composition works in real time.
Nothing precious. Nothing final. Just play.
This “low-pressure” way of working does something important: it allows new ideas to surface before committing to a full piece.
One repeated block can reveal a pattern.
A cut curve can suggest movement.
An unexpected negative space can spark a new direction.
These small studies become seeds for bigger work.
Finding Shape in the World Around Us
Artists often rediscover shape everywhere once they start looking:
the curve of a shell
the shadow of a railing
the block of a building against the sky
the pattern of leaves pressed in wind
the geometry of woven cloth
In DesignPlus sessions, seeing each other’s shape studies creates a gentle chain reaction - one person’s simple cut-out becomes someone else’s stitched motif, which becomes someone else’s felted form.
Ideas ripple outward.
Shape, more than any other principle, reminds us that creativity is a conversation.
Shape as a Community Practice
What makes shape so powerful in our groups is not just the exercises. It’s the way people respond to each other’s discoveries.
Sharing the same principle each month gives everyone a common language.
Someone notices a pattern you missed.
Someone sees movement in a mark you thought was static.
Someone rearranges your shapes and reveals a new possibility.
Learning shape together helps artists see their own work differently - with curiosity rather than criticism.
Start With Shape
If you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed by colour, or unsure where to begin, shape is the gentlest way to restart your creativity.
Begin with the outline.
The blocks.
The rhythm.
The space.
Once the structure is there, everything else ~ colour, texture, detail ~ becomes a choice, not a guess.
👉 Join our next DesignPlus Discovery Call to explore the design principles in a small, supportive group.
You might just “Find Your Birds” there.