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  • #1479235
    Ohmo
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        What aspect ratio (8×10, 9×12, 12×12, larger, smaller, etc.) do you find easiest to compose or work with. To view?

        Like art, itself, this is a very subjective opinion, and can change from time to time, but do you have a favorite today?

        Right now I favor

        9×12 for watercolors because that is the size/ratio of paper I have on hand. In November it will be 5×7 for holiday cards

        12×12 for acrylics because I have an abundance of stretched canvases screaming at me to be used

        8×8 for digital works for reasons I haven’t dared look at.

        What’s on your easel?

        Skill is nothing more than talent practiced relentlessly.

        #1479449
        WFMartin
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            16″ x 20″ canvas boards for oil paintings.  I’ve nearly standardized my work to that format, and dimension.

            wfmartin. My Blog "Creative Realism"...
            https://williamfmartin.blogspot.com

            #1479585
            BeLing
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                I’ll just say I find squares of any size the most difficult.

                #1479595

                I don’t find any size difficult to compose on. I used to do a lot of scherenschnitte (paper cutting) when I was younger. The beauty and function of the design depend on how you use the spaces. I think it was good training on how to use and fill any size and shape.

                I tend to paint miniatures so anything under 5×7 is my preferred size though.

                I do have a bunch of larger canvases mostly 8×10 and 16×20 that I need to use up.

                What a great question.

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                #1482796
                John humber
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                    I’ll just say I find squares of any size the most difficult.

                    I can understand that. Many of the artists whose work I study use square format—in one case to the exclusion of anything else. For a long time I avoided the square format; it seemed particularly odd for landscapes, which is what I paint. To put any kind of a frame around a scene is a contrivance and our typical field of view is wider than it is deep so shouldn’t landscape paintings be the same?

                    I’ve worked to this idea in a very general way by utilising the double-square format. It’s a pleasing ratio and I’ve found that it forces a more thoughful consideration of, for example, where to put the horizon. Because it’s so much wider than it is deep I have to consider—even more so than with a more regular rectangle—is it sky or foreground I’m interested in?

                    I’ve also used the double square in its vertical format—it suits certain compositions, though maybe not if you are interested in accurate representation.

                    Recently I’ve overcome my aversion to the square and found that I like it more than I thought I would. It crops the field of view in a way that might be seen as the antithesis of landscape, but, as with the double square, it forces a more thoughtful consideration of the subject I find. And for works that may be framed, it’s more flexible; I can have square frames made up and they will take a variety of different sizes of square picture, so are easier to re-use. I’ve found, in the past, that with the regular rectangles of Imperial paper (30″x22″) and it’s regular subdivisions (half-sheet/quarto etc.), it’s less easy to re-use the frames.

                    Like art, itself, this is a very subjective opinion, and can change from time to time, but do you have a favorite today?

                    To address the original point, I’m currently working on a 12-inch square box canvas. Why? Because I’ve not worked on a canvas for quite a while and the ones I have available are square. There was no studied and thoughful consideration. I had a sketch in my sketchbook that I wanted to develop and my eye fell on the four 12×12 box canvasses and I thought, ‘yeah…let’s use a canvas for this’.

                    PLEASE how do I make these dreadful yellow things go away? OMG there's even more of the awful things now.

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                    #1488463

                    Though the study was done many decades ago, it was found that for paintings higher than wide; a 4 by 5 ratio was preferred; and for wider than high, a ratio of 4 by 3.

                    I suspect that these are the most ‘invisible’ ratios.  A square is obviously a square, but a squarish rectangle isn’t drawing much attention to its proportions, but instead to what’s happening within the allocated space within.  The horizontal picture is 4 by 3 and not 5 by 4 because we tend to read the left to right (or right to left.) faster than looking up or down.  Thus with time and distance, horizonal measurements of equal length to vertical ones will seem slightly shorter.  A horizonal 5 by 4 might seem a little too close to being a square without actually being one.  (“So a bit off” in nature.)  And yes, if you were wondering, true squares are sometimes perceived to be a slightly un-true (if still a square) and marginally too long in the vertical measurement.

                    insert pithy comment here.

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