Those of you familiar with my work, either from seeing me at shows or through my blogs, website or facebook page might notice that the majority of my paintings are 8 x 10, 9 x 12 up to 16 x 20 and 18 x 24 (inches) In fact the 1hundredpaintings blog is exclusively small paintings, 4 x 6 and 5 x 7.
Sometimes though you have to make a change. Go Big. I have put two recent large paintings here on this post. The White Horse is a 3' x 4' oil on canvas. (Click on the image for a larger view)
Here is a photo of my wife, a portrait artist, standing next to the painting. (I am too tall, so it does look more impressive with her instead of me,)
I have painting smaller formats for a number of years now, especially when painting outdoors when smaller canvases are much more convenient, easier to carry and not a prone to blowing away. But large work is not entirely new. Years ago, before digital printing, illustrations on signs and billboards where painted by hand. They were called "pictorials" in the trade. Though I didn't paint many billboards, for a time I worked with a sign company that had a number of commercial real estate and developers as clients. Coming Soon construction signs with renderings of future buildings one of my niches. Eight foot by twelve foot paintings of a building or shopping center where not uncommon. I do remember painting three 8' x 12' renderings of the same office building. (Good practice)
Back to the present....
The second painting is a landscape, a mountain stream in the deep woods with sunlight filtering through the leaves. It is a 30 x 40 (inches) canvas and below is a photo of the painting in progress on the easel.
One thing that both paintings have in common is that I painted a smaller version (8 x 10) of each before the large version.
Come see me at the shows and see them "live and full size"
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