When I read the title of Alyson’s post I thought she was speaking figuratively rather than about physical dimensions. And I agree with her that young artists should do lots of large work. In my classesat MICA I require all the homework drawings to be on a 36″ or larger piece of paper- it really helps the student grow.
But there is also value in “thinking large” and not trapping yourself into too narrow an idea of what your art should be. I’m all in favor of focus and think a sure road to ruin for any artist is to be equally interested in everything. You just can’t run in all directions at once, though many young artists try.
The other side of the coin is getting stuck with a too small idea and repeating it endlessly. I remember when I was coming up as an art student in the 1960’s there was a painter Lucio Fontana who was getting a lot of attention for slicing a deep vertical gouge right through the middle of his otherwise unexceptional abstract paintings. You could always tell a Fontana of course, but once you’d done that there really wasn’t much of a second act. Though his work was physically large, I felt his idea of what his art could be was way too small.

Gee, I’m sorry your teacher died, he was really good…If you go to his art gallery, under his name are two thumbnails which lead to 2 slideshows of his work…Just beautiful, a little breathtaking…He’s still teaching though- I, for one, am reconsidering the use of oil sticks just from looking today…
I am just returning to painting big after 9 years of going smaller- I was hunkering in in anticipation of the mean economy…
One thing I have learned, when painting big, try to sketch directly onto the large size- if you sketch small & expand later you lose detail…
I miss the “wow” big works got me…I like the wow…Also, it might be nice for my portraits to have feet…

Interesting post, I’ve recently started painting larger pieces as with before I’ve always not really gone over anything bigger than 20 or 30 inches. So recently experimented with a few 40 X 40’s and even 50 X 70’s and so on and its proven to be a lot more demanding than the smaller work. So yeah I definately agree that painting larger captures more imagination.
This year I’d love to go all out and extra large on my works as I’ve done so much medium to small pieces that has filled my gallery to the brim. Also I think there a greater personal reward or satisfaction when creating larger pieces. My studio has had to take an upgrade however by moving into a larger room tho the girlfriend doesn’t approve lol. great post thanks for sharing and all the best.

One thing I think is extremely helpful is to keep doing large and small pieces at the same time. Each different scale seems to bring out a different side of one’s inner personality.
The small pieces actually can be more experimental and sometimes yield fabulous little accidental drips and smears more expressive than anything you can get when you are more deliberate and planning each step.
Yet with the large pieces, when you pull it off successfully (which is hard!) there can be a real grandeur to the achievement. Also let’s face it, larger paintings are always the first to get the viewers attention. Every painter needs some of that.

Love this post! Coming out of a successful holiday season that saw a lot of smaller commissions I am very hungry to work BIG, both in my commercial projects and personal works.

Painting small is more of a problem for me than painting big. I’ve always had a hard time keeping the drawing on a small paper… 18 x 24 is way too small. I LOVE to paint large canvases although I’m only referring to 4 x 5′ or 6′.. It takes a long time, but I become completely immersed in the image and the process.

I love working big and wanted to work even bigger than 40″ x 60 “. My studio is running out of storage for large pieces so I recently bought a roll of Yes canvas so I can work even larger and roll the work. Any suggestions on what I need to put between the finished work to roll and store. I am using acrylics. I thought maybe butcher paper instead of glassine.
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