Fitting picture onto the canvas

[leo_piatigo]

Hi i am a beginner oil painter. One of my obstacles is fitting the landscape I see when I paint outside onto the canvas.

Is there a device like a view catcher (view finder) that I could put next to the easel that is the same size as my canvas, so that seeing through it will help to get dimensions right? Sort of like a standing board with the rectangular hole with dimensions of the canvas? That could be a really helpful tool for novice painters.

Thanks,

Leon

[Yorky Administrator Ormskirk]

There are handheld “picture finders” but I have seen nothing that would fit on a stand.

Doug

We must leave our mark on this world

[Keith2]

Here’s how you can do it.

Cut a rectangular hole 1.5 x 2 inches in a piece of stiff cardboard.

Stretch two rubber bands over the cardboard, one horizontally, the other vertically.

Adjust them so that they divide the aperture into 4 equal quadrants.

On your canvas, which should have a 3 to 4 ratio (say 12 x 16 inches), draw a horizontal line and a vertical line on the canvas so they divide it in 4 equal quadrants.

Hold the viewfinder and look thro it so the centre of attraction of your picture is in the crossed elastic. You then can see more clearly the relative position of the main features and you can roughly mark them on the canvas.

 

Line Drawing Part One – How To Use A Viewfinder

Here’s a drawing of a large scale viewfinder, it must be from the Renaissance. Interesting to look at although too impractical unless you’re painting in a big studio.

 

[mr-cinnabar]

Don’t bother doing all that picture finder stuff, etc. Just paint some more and that problem will dissipate with time and work. Just as a musician must train his/her ear, so the artist must train the eye, to see what is essential and remove what is not, to see what crop works or does not; the thing you seem to be describing ‘the same size as the canvas’ seems impractical at best. Do lots of thumbnails, bring along a small WC pad for plein-air prelims. Above all, don’t worry, it will come. It’s all a part of the process.

[John humber]

Even with experience there can be a tendency to try to incorporate too much of a scene which results in a painting that lacks impact.

I made myself a viewfinder thing with a slider so that I could adjust it to the ratio of my sketchbook pages. I look at the scene through this, moving it around and back and forth to find a good composition. I then note key points; the treeline is just above a quarter of the distance down, the hedgerow at the left is about a quarter up from the corner and so on. I can then use this as a guide; being too dogmatic about it, I find, results in stiff, dull work. I’m making an interpretation of the scene after all; it’s not real.

PLEASE how do I make these dreadful yellow things go away?

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[Patrick Barrie]

I made this viewfinder attachment.  Helps with initial composition.

 

It rotates and it can be easily removed

[Gav]

I find sketches help a great deal. A few small simple scketches of the scene you have in mind, or in view will help you judge and realise what will fit in or not.
You do need to think about the proportions of your canvas though and emulate this with your thubnail sketch. Whether its a square canvas or rectangulalar your thumbnail should be very close to the same proportions just in a smaller scale.
The smallness of a thumbnail sketch stops you getting bogged down in detail and you focus on the components of and the composition of the painting.
Over time your thumbnails sketches will become fewer, simpler or not even needed at all. – all that judgement will go on in your head.

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[Ohmo]

Despite other opinion to the contrary, just painting more will not help much, if at all. The longer one does something incorrectly, the harder it will be to correct it.

A homemade view finder can be mounted to an easel many ways. There are also many commercially available finders.

However, using the tool incorrectly can be as unhelpful as just painting the same mistake again and again. Use a smaller view finder and discover the distance between your eye and finder produces the size image you want to paint. It is much like using a pencil held at arm’s length to determine dimensions.

Skill is nothing more than talent practiced relentlessly.

[Author]

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