Blog

Often, I need to remind students to step back and look at their work from a distance; for a small painting, I often suggest 6-8 feet. But why?

All drawings and paintings have, by intent or by accident, an Optimal Viewing Distance.

Imagine you have just walked into a museum gallery. You recognize many of the paintings from books—or from your last visit.

You find one particular painting that you love and always visit first, so you walk right up close to it, because you want to see the details, and maybe get insights into how it was painted. Right?

And… as you get closer and closer, the brushwork becomes more noticeable and easier to follow, which is what You are looking for—but the individual marks the artist made now begin to dominate the image, and you lose some of what was gloriously clear when you were 20 feet, or even 10 feet away. The painting no longer reads.

A typical viewer of the painting just wants to see the painting. They will like it, love it, or just glance over it on their way to look at something else, based on how it looks at a normal viewing distance; at the Optimal Viewing Distance.

Below are two images of the same marker drawing (done with grey and black markers), that I did many years ago of a street in Doylestown, PA.

First is the Full Drawing, seen from the Optimal Viewing Distance. It is a quick sketch and gestural in style, done with broad tipped markers. Still, it holds together. You see buildings, windows, cars—a place.

In theatre, when painting backdrops, artists target a specific row (it varies theater to theater), and paint the image so that it reads best from that distance. A theater is a very big room, but still, just a room. The painting can’t be “in focus” equally everywhere. So, someone decides the Optimal Viewing Distance for the scenery—the place where it will read best—and it is painted accordingly.

Often with Fine Artists, it is sort of accidental, and with newer artists, it is about 18” to 30” because that is how far away their eyes are from the surface as they create the work—and they don’t step back often enough.

Next is a close up (detail) of the drawing.

t falls instantly apart! You only see very blob-like marks that look like they would never be part of anything at all.

The drawing only “reads” when seen with a little distance. The way it looks up close is primarily of interest to other artists (possibly like you) who want to see how it was done.

Most viewers are more concerned with the total effect—which, was probably the artist’s intention.

Back to my students—I tell them to step back frequently, to set a timer in their heads. If that doesn’t work, I will suggest that whenever they find themselves looking at the work trying to decide what to do next--step back.

It is a slow habit to build. Eventually you will not only remember to step back, but you will be able to turn a switch in your brain that actually sees it as if you were further away. But even then you will need to step back often, just not quite as often.