This past weekend I viewed an exhibit of 58 paintings by Roman Bearden (1911-1988) at the University of Michigan Museum of Art. He was an outstanding abstract painter. As I walked through the show I wondered why he picked various canvas sizes for his work.

With this blog, I would like to talk about the size and shape of my painting canvases and share some recent changes.

For some time, I have been painting on 36”x36” and 24”x24” canvases. I chose those sizes because they’re have great impact on the viewer. And, frankly, my studio presents some physical restraints making it difficult to go big. During the past year I decided to work with even smaller surfaces producing a series of 12”x12” paintings

What I have learned is that the scale of my paint strokes must be adjusted to meld with the size of each composition. By working with various sizes of canvas I’ve learned what’s important with each paint stroke. You may think it’s easier to work small, but not really. Every inch counts and nothing can hide the visual story. What I like about smaller paintings is that people tend to move closer to view the layers of paint thereby creating a sense of intimacy.

In general, square shapes are magical shapes because they can change and appear different when viewed horizontally or vertically. This gives me the opportunity to react to the composition as it’s developing.