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Posted
I have noticed over a period of time that many good paintings are quite small. Sizes 7x10and 6x9 inches being quite common and the odd one even smaller ...and not miniature by any means .My usual size is quarter imperial cos I am too lazy to cut them smaller and get them precut when i order them. in quarter imp. anyway. Maybe I will try slicing my 300 lb quarter imp. in two and use that size.
I think it is easier to paint a small painting especially when faced with a large foreground in a landscape . Maybe its all in the mind but i will have a go sometime soon and see what happens! I dont like big paintings anyway and I dont see the point of them other than helpful for people with defective eye sight for small images or artists who like using Size 14 sables in watercolour as a norm....Syd
Posted
Most of my watercolours mount at 18 by 14 - not sure if you class that as small but I use a mixture of brush sizes including 20 18 14 and my smallest 8. As for my abstracts they can be anything up to 30 by 20 - my largest to date. Not sure where that leaves me - I prefer a painting to make a statement. Small paintings often look good in the gallery and, sorry Syd as we are usually in agreement, but in reality I find they are often too fiddly and insignificant and pale into insignificance in anything other than a small confined space.
Posted
I Love the very big paintings you find for example, on Community Centre entrance areas; Bold designs. Figurative, landscape or abstract, whatever. Surprise me.......Or simply designs signifying nothing but with tremendous impact. This is the sort of thing I would diversify into if I had the space in which to do it. Visual impact is all important in any work whatever size. Small paintings? Skilful yes, beautiful yes, but sadly they tend to get lost on a wall.
Posted
I was involved with 'Paintings in Hospitals' which is the charity body which organises many of the works you see in Hospitals and was also involved with organising hospital exhibitions over many years - so yes I agree about the superb works which can be seen in hospitals up and down the country.
Posted
Painting in oils I prefer medium (16x12 to 20x16) or large (20x30) as I find the larger the looser I paint and I prefer that style. In watercolour I would never use anything more than about 10x14 as that suits my style. Horses for courses I suppose but it might be interesting to reverse the sizes sometime and try a small oil and a large watercolour. If only there was enough time to try that experiment along with all the others I have planned!
Posted
Many of my pictures are relatively small - I'm not sure this is helpful in terms of sales: people seem to want big pictures to dominate a wall: but like Syd, I don't really like big pictures. I certainly don't like painting them, partly because they're such a flaming nuisance to store, they cost a fortune to frame, I don't believe unframed pictures are being given half the chance they deserve so that's not an option, but if I were desperate to sell I suppose I'd be doing them.
I'd do it for commission though - indeed, I HAVE done it, many years ago: I hope to God that painting doesn't exist any more, it was ghastly.... But I'd do a much better job now, honest!
I suppose the danger of always doing small pictures is that you get restricted by the format; and a room full of them tends to look like a Victorian parlour, with tiny paintings on the wall and knick-knacks everywhere that you either knock over or bark your shins on. So I go for a compromise size, neither big nor small, and that's not right either .... you can't win.
http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net
http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk
Posted
Ruth - yes it is a charity which loans paintings out to hospitals on a rotational system for which the hospital pays a small fee per painting loaned. I was one of the Midland area organisers back in the 1990s. Prince Charles is its Patron and I can do no more than point you to its website:
http://www.paintingsinhospitals.org.uk/
As far as the placing of paintings in wards is concerned this is up to the individual hospitals. However the problems of cleaning and infection control prohibit them in many areas. Many Hospitals will take the view that it makes sense for a blanket ban rather than adopting a policy of having them in some ward areas and not others which would be difficult to manage and appear to be discriminatory. Also as far paintings on loan are concerned access can be a serious problem when it comes to change over etc.
Other issues also arise. I ran many hospital exhibitions over the years and can recall being asked to remove some paintings from an exhibition featuring jazz players and singers on the grounds that people were seen smoking in some of them - not a good idea with so many being treated for cancer related problems. On another occasion I was asked to remove some life studies as it was claimed that they would offend members of a certain religion. I was also asked to remove some still lifes of fruit as they were hung close to wards where images of food might not lie well with patients on strict dietry regime. Nothing is as simple as it first appears I am afraid.
Edited
by MichaelEdwards
Posted
I usually paint on 15x11 for cost but, I do like 22x18 ,I used to paint on that when I needed to be seen at the back, I find it gives more time to dry between passages of work, I noted J,F,Watson used both sizes ,,,,
but Edward Wesson predominately used 22x18 most of his paintings are on this paper size
They say he paused a lot during his sessions to chat .,then turn and continue. I think it was to let passage dry .. his larger paper would help him
in this respect,
Posted
Two quick points - when I volunteered for the NHS, I served for a time on the committee which identified and valued the many artworks owned by the Hospital Trust - this was needed for insurance purposes.
The paintings had to be framed in a particular way (sealed, basically) to comply with infection control (as Michael has mentioned) - so paintings were rarely displayed in the actual wards, but were shown in communal areas, corridors, the restaurant, rest areas, the chapel, and so on. This particular hospital owns more artwork than it can actually show at any one time, but that does allow for displays to be refreshed. The hospital has an art director, who curates the collection and pursues all sorts of other ways in which the arts can contribute to the healing process and generally elevate the mood. He did get a bit irritated, or perhaps saddened would be more accurate, when staff told him that they didn't much like the original paintings he'd put up in the chapel, but preferred a nice cheery Athena print .... now the very last thing I'd want to see when visiting the chapel, in which the deceased are laid to rest before moving on to the funeral director (well: being moved - they weren't all that mobile themselves) is a nice cheery Athena print, but there we are. Staff may be very compassionate, but that doesn't mean they necessarily have any taste.
The other point is about small paintings and the suggestion someone made up above (Syd?) that they were easier to do than large ones. I've found the exact opposite - small paintings, as A G Holder has remarked, can be extremely restricting and hampering, and I've always found larger ones, say 18" by 24", which would be large for me, much less of a problem: a small painting has to be a compact distillation of a scene, whereas with a large picture you can move around a bit. I suspect however that this varies a lot between painters, and probably between subjects.
http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net
http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk
Posted
Syd. I must disagree with your basic premise. “. . . don’t see the point . . . “ of big paintings?? That really is a contentious remark—I might retort along the lines of small paintings are too fiddly, not worth bothering with. Have you not stood in front of any of Monet’s Water Lilly paintings and gazed in rapture? More seriously though, I don’t think I would want to restrict myself to an ‘I always use . . . ‘ in terms of size.
That said I do know that many contemporary artists whose work one can see in the big galleries often work to standard sizes and formats—the frames of pictures that don’t sell can be re-used and that makes strong business sense. But sales is not my main motivation.
I work on paper and I buy full sheets—a large sheet can be cut (and I realise that your “too lazy” remark is tongue-in-cheek) but the pre-cut sizes can’t be ‘grown’, also I like the deckle-edge which is lost when the sheet is machine-cut. I also buy rolls for really big work (I have six drawings going to the Great North Art Show in Ripon next week and they are each around five feet square).
I like big Syd. I like big very much. It’s neither easier nor is it more difficult than ‘small’; it’s just different and presents different challenges. I suppose it depends a lot on one’s incentive and motivation. I prefer to work standing up—I feel too restricted and ‘tight’ in a sitting position—and it is the mark-making aspects in both drawing and painting that excite me and big allows me to explore this more fully—arm and shoulder movements rather than finger and hand movements. I also prefer to work a little, take a step or two back and contemplate, work a little more, etc. And from time-to-time I will sit in my pondering chair and . . . ponder.