Try Experimenting With Different Formats

In September I showed an example of a landscape commission I painted on a square canvas.  Typically landscapes are horizontally oriented but they certainly don't have to be. Consider some of the extremely vertical landscapes in traditional Asian art.  I'm now seeing this in the work of contemporary artists as well as horizontal formats with a 1:2 ratio, e.g. 12"x24".  Or even a 1:3 ratio.

I have tried my hand at some of these recently and it has been fun as well as a learning experience.   If painting in the studio I look through my "art ideas" photo file and edit by cropping them different ways to see what might work.  Basically I look for a better composition within the image.

Examples:

Photo of a beach on Cape Cod-  what interested me most was the horizontal arrangement of the colorful umbrellas.  The foreground didn't add much.

                                                      Cropped version-

                                         And from this the painting on a 6"x12" panel-

Next a photo of waves on our local beach-  I love the energy and movement of the waves breaking from the center to the right in the upper half of the photo.

                                                         Cropped version-

                                         And the painting on a 6"x12" panel-

As for vertical formats, I have not tried this with a landscape other than tree portraits which easily fit.  Here is a plein air example, 10"x8"-

For an even more vertical format I tried a cat portrait 16"x8"- I think his tail makes it all work-

Obviously I cropped the original photo quite a bit.

Try looking at your photos that you like but have yet to inspire a painting.  They might work well in a different format.

Thanks for reading!