I needed a large painting to go over our fireplace for an upcoming Artist Studio Tour. I decided on an image and then made the frame and stretched the canvas. This is a large 36" X 60" gallery wrapped canvas. To date, this is my largest painting. Large paintings come with a whole other set of problems to deal with. The biggest problem is trying to paint the image in your head to the much larger scale. I used a reference pic to work from but you have to translate all of that to such a large scale...think bigger, paint with much broader brush strokes...use larger brushes...sounds like it is no biggie but when you are used to painting smaller works going larger is
way more work!Here is the beginning of the whole process.
Here is the final painting....
To see how it would look on the wall I went ahead and snapped a pic of our fireplace and then added my ref image to it in Photoshop. Looked pretty cool so I grabbed the brushes and painted away. Below, you can see the photoshop image and final painting on the right.
In the finished painting on the right the bottom and very top are washed out due to my excellent photography skills! Those areas are actually darker and resemble the reference photo on the left. Anyway, it was a good project and will work very well for the show in November.
6 comments:
The lighting is superb, Ron. I'd be 'over the moon' if I'd created this wonderful painting.
Hi Alexandre,
Thanks for the good words...These big ones are really hard to photograph so you'll have to take word that it really looks much better in real life. I'm pretty happy with it though and I think it will show well for the tour. Thanks!
Ron
Absolutely gorgous! I paint rather small and I want to paint a large painting, but am terrified to start. Do you have any other hints?
Connie
Hi Connie,
I'm not the expert on big paintings. Larger brushes help...same types that you use now but larger. If you make a simple grid on your canvas it is easy to transfer the image to it's larger scale....start with intersecting center lines and add more if you need them.
Good luck with your painting Connie!
Rin
Hey ron I think this turned out real good!
Working big is really good fun (my biggest is 40x40 inches ) and you're right about keeping to bigger version of you normal brushes. It really allows you to get the arm moving loosely
Ryan
Hi Ryan,
Yep, after starting this one I realised I needed to go and buy some larger brushes....another excuse to go to an art store! I was given a gift certificate at an art show for Dick Blick and there is one of their stores where my parents live so that paid for that....and some paint.
Large is fun but you hate to waste that canvas so it took me a while to decide on what scene to paint. I had about 8 various ideas and reference photos to pick from. Still a lot of fun.
Thanks Ryan.
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