Yes, thanks Svigor, I'm glad I bookmarked this thread. :) If I look at some of my work, I can see places where I've followed the rules, and places where I haven't; in both cases, without knowing what the rules were. I just did what I thought worked at the time. In a couple of instances I've copied the look and feel of another artist's work in an attempt to find out what makes it tick. So here's the chicken and egg question. Do artists who know them follow these rules consciously, or are the rules just an attempt to formulate what an artist does instinctively? No need to attempt an answer, by the way. I strongly suspect there isn't one; or, more precisely, there are two diametrically opposed answers which are both true. :) I remember once playing one of my musical compositions to someone with training. "You can't resolve that chord like that", he said, "it's against the rules of harmony." So what? I did it, and it worked for me. In my opinion, being an artist is about trusting your own senses to report the truth of what you're doing.