Art Unboxed – Painting Big And Small

I remember hearing some years ago an art instructor tell a student, one method to improve is to paint not only portraits, but large ones. While I didn’t try it immediately, it did leave an impression. What I have discovered is that drawing and painting both big and small images have been beneficial to my skills as an artist.

I enjoy sketching small pencil drawings, as well as doing quick compact watercolors. The more I do these, the more I learn. At the same time, in acrylics my preferred painting is a 16×20 size. My two most successful acrylics, a portrait of President Lincoln and an African elephant, were 16 x 20’s.

I’ve started applying this to my watercolors as well. Previously I would fill a a 9×12 watercolor sketchbook page with multiple images. Recently the last few watercolors I have been doing are themselves around 9×12 size.

They do take a little more time, but they have been both rewarding, and taught me in the process. I was amazed at the richness of the brown in a recent watercolor of a horse, more so than I ever noticed before. It’s also allowed me to experiment with some pastel application as with a big cat’s whiskers in a cheetah painting.

While I enjoy negative painting, (avoiding putting any paint on areas where the white paper forms part of the image for those not familiar with it), I don’t care to take time to work with masking fluid. Having the ability to do a slight highlight with a white pastel is a welcome addition to my toolbox.

Even in my digital art, I have seen a difference in going from a small iPad Mini to a larger iPad Pro. While you can zoom in on either, I’ve enjoyed the process even more on my iPad Pro. Though part of this also has to be attributed to the Apple Pencil, and ProCreate, the larger format is very helpful. For a long time I was an Artrage user, and while I still use it on my iPhone for field sketches, all of my iPad work is completed on ProCreate now. I will mention this post is not sponsored by either Apple or ProCreate, they are simply two of my preferred tools.

Concerning portraits, regardless of the medium, eyes are much easier for me on a larger scale. It makes me appreciate how intricate God’s creation is. Artists can have trouble drawing eyes at any size, yet God put a world in such a small space. The fact that artists struggle drawing eyes is ironic, considering eyes enhance so greatly an artist’s ability to not only see but also perceive light, shadow, contrast, and hue.

Personally, painting big and small has enhanced my art in the ability to see, draftsmanship, color mixing, color handling, and appreciation. It has also taught me in another area, expanding what I thought was possible. It reminds me that we all should continue to try new techniques and ideas that will enhance our skills.