Lichfield Cathedral - An Impression, oil on Jackson’s linen board, (40 x 48cm)

Alan Bickley shows how to scale up your plein-air work to produce a larger studio painting.

There may be occasions when you want to transfer a drawing or painting to a larger size support. I find it particularly useful if I have a small plein-air oil sketch that I think is worth developing into a larger work back in the studio.

I’ll show you how simple this process can be, just by following the tried and tested method for scaling up your work. I’ll be working with Jackson’s Artist quality oil paints, although you can, of course, use your preferred paints. I will also be using the indirect approach to painting, by working in stages/layers.

Materials

• Jackson’s Black hog round sizes 2 and 4
• Jackson's Black hog flat sizes 2, 3 and 6
• No 4 Shiro hog round
• Colours: Unbleached titanium white, yellow ochre, phthalo green, ultramarine blue, naples yellow, light red, quinacridone red

Scaling up your plein-air sketch

Plein air sketch with grid

Step 1

The traditional ‘squaring up’ process is the method I was taught at college, and has stood me in good stead ever since - I actually enjoy this preliminary process before moving on to painting.

Start by drawing out a grid of equal-sized squares on your sketch or painting (or use a transparent overlay). 

Your larger support must be of the same proportion when scaled up, ie, a 10x12in canvas will scale up proportionally to 20x24in. Qquare your canvas up in the same way and transfer your work over. Use a thin charcoal stick, although I often like to draw in the image using a loaded brush of raw umber using a No 2 Jackson’s Black Hog Round.

Top Tip Don’t use graphite pencil or marker pens, they can bleed through the surface of the painting over time, particularly if you’re painting with thin layers.

If you're new to oils, don't stop here! Explore our other beginner-friendly guides to learn all you need to progress and develop your oil skills.

In my example, this small plein-air oil sketch of Lichfield Cathedral was 25x30cm. I’ve transferred this image onto a larger 40x48cm linen board using charcoal. I’d coated this board earlier with a yellow ochre and white ground of acrylic so it was bone dry to start working on.

Top Tip Ensure your ground is dry to avoid dragging up wet paint from your support.

Step 2

I can now start to block in some of the strongest tonal areas, keeping everything loose and painterly - I’m definitely not looking to achieve anything verging on photographic.

It’s so much easier to manage a complex painting once you have the main structure drawn out accurately. It’s just a matter of blocking it all in, but this needs to be done in the right sequence.

Top Tip Don’t spend too much time drawing in lots of detail at this stage, and don’t rely too heavily on these lines. Use them as a guide only, otherwise you could be in danger of carefully following them like a ‘paint by numbers’ work. 

Most of these lines will be covered over eventually, although some of my working lines, including the grid lines may still be visible in the final painting. I have no issues with this, although some may prefer not to have them showing.

Step 3

Once my darkest tonal areas had been blocked in, I mixed a range of warm pastel colours for the cathedral and also for some of the buildings. I will keep detail to the bare minimum so the windows of the houses were simply indicated with a darker shade of the local colour, using a No 3 Black Hog flat brush. 

Step 4

Now to start blocking in the main structure of the cathedral. I indicated the main arched shapes of the windows, and mixed a bluish grey for the shadow side of the spires and roofs. It was important to keep the sky simple and uncluttered, so this was blocked in using a cool mix of blue/grey tones with a base of unbleached titanium white.

Finally, a quick indication using a mix of phthalo green and ultramarine was used to scrub in the foreground trees and bushes with a worn Jackson’s Shiro hog round. I felt that this was adequate as I didn’t want to start adding large blocks of green, which may well have distracted the eye from the main composition and focal point.

As I hadn’t taken a photograph at the time I had to rely solely on my original plein-air sketch, which lacked any discernible detail. This was perhaps a good thing and certainly prevented me from fiddling around with a fine detail brush!

It’s never easy knowing when a work is complete, but it’s so easy to keep going and totally destroy the freshness and immediacy that was your original goal! Once you feel that you’ve arrived at that stage… STOP!

---