Thumbnail Sketches

Now, if you read a lot of art books, most of them say that the best way to create a composition/painting is to create a thumbnail sketch. These sketches should be around 3 to 5 inches in size and lacking detail. A lot of my works are usually created using thumbnail sketches of the landscape. It's a way for me to layout trees/clouds/rocks in different positions and decide what composition that I like.

One of my problems is that the thumbnail sketches are not simple. As you can see from the drawings above, they are more linear and detailed. However, the thumbnails that you see are the more finished products (more are at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=139494&id=139120096678 ). Also, when you look at the art books that stress doing thumbnails, you see equally or more detailed sketches. This is not fast.

The latest blog posting of Muddy Colors (http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2010/11/monster-slayers.html ) shows a great example of how the thumbnails are properly done. Notice how there is very little detail. Just large shapes and the general direction of the shapes. Some of the thumbnails were abandoned during the drawing because they didn't have the right feel.

I really like this looser way of doing the thumbnails and will try it for my next painting.