SVS Creative Composition is an online class from the School of Visual Storytelling, taught by illustrator Will Terry. It covers the planning stage that turns good drawings into strong images: dividing space, choosing the camera position, thumbnailing, using shapes and lines, avoiding tangents and building a hierarchy of focal points. It applies to paintings, illustrations, comic panels and book covers alike. The class has 51 lessons with about four hours of video, a workbook with a checklist and a long series of exercises, and is included in the SVS Learn membership.

Will describes composition as the part most beginners skip. The class makes the principles concrete with short exercises, one after another, so that good design choices become habits.

What You Will Learn

The four principles of design and how to plan with them
Space division, the rule of thirds and the image edge
Negative space and camera placement
Exit lines, forced perspective and overlapping
Thumbnailing, and the rhythm of small, medium and huge shapes
Straights and curves, scale, tangents and implied lines
Simplifying complex shapes and creating a hierarchy of focal points
Working up from a thumbnail to a finished drawing

Who Is SVS Creative Composition For?

The class suits illustrators and painters whose images feel cluttered or static, and comic artists who want clearer panels. It is useful at any stage, but particularly after you can draw characters and environments and need to put them together.

How the Class Works

Each concept gets a short lesson and an exercise, more than a dozen in total, from tracing thumbnails to fitting objects together and drawing random organic shapes. The workbook includes a checklist you can use on any image, which makes this class a reference you will return to.

Course Structure

Introduction: what design is, workbook and checklist, tracing thumbnails (Exercise 1)
Space division: rule of thirds, image edge, negative space, camera placement (Exercises 2 to 6)
Lines and depth: exit lines, drawing through, forced perspective (Exercises 7 and 8)
Thumbnailing: small, medium, huge; overlapping; adding foreground (Exercises 9 and 10)
Line quality: straights and curves, scale, tangents (Exercise 11), implied lines
Shape: fitting objects together, simplifying complex shapes, organic shapes (Exercises 12 to 14)
Emphasis: focal points and hierarchy, and working up to a finished drawing

What You Will Make

By the end you will have a full sketchbook of composition exercises and a method, backed by a checklist, for planning any image. Applying it to an illustration you have already finished is a good test: it often shows exactly why the piece did or did not work.

Price and Access

The class is included in the SVS Learn membership. SVS lists its Studio membership at $29.95 a month, and class pages show a $300 annual option. A 14-day free trial is available with a card and becomes a paid subscription unless cancelled. Membership includes live events and a monthly art challenge.

About the Instructor

Will Terry has been a freelance illustrator for 26 years and has illustrated about 30 children's books for publishers including Random House, Simon & Schuster, Scholastic and Penguin. He teaches from the SVS office in Provo, Utah.

How It Fits the SVS Curriculum

Creative Composition is part of Level 4 of SVS Essentials, the visual storytelling level, alongside Developing Great Visual Stories and Building Backgrounds for Characters.

Things to Consider

Time: four hours of video and many short exercises.
Use the checklist: run it on every portfolio piece.
Medium: quick thumbnails in any medium.
Next steps: Building Backgrounds for Characters.
Feedback: share exercises in the SVS community.

Start the Course

Interested in learning with SVS Learn?

Start Creative Composition

For the full curriculum and membership options, visit the official SVS Learn website.

Looking for more ways to learn? Browse all courses and learning resources on Good Stuff Weekly.

Last verified: October 26, 2026

Creative Composition by SVS Learn