Tips for painting BIG

Working big can help you to achieve maximum impact in your artwork, as well as capturing more details.

Anna has some tips for creating big paintings in this video.

Paper

For working on large-scale paintings in a realistic style (or wet-on-dry), Anna recommends using sheets of 640gsm hot pressed paper. Full-sized sheets are around 22 by 30 inches. The brands Anna uses herself are Arches or Fabriano.

• Buy full sheets of Fabriano paper from the UK
• Buy full sheets of Arches paper from the UK
• Buy full sheets of Fabriano paper from the US
• Buy full sheets of Arches paper from the US

Note: You may see that for some of Anna's large paintings, she's used Strathmore Vellum Illustration Board instead of paper. Due to international supply issues, this is hard to get hold of at the moment. Anna says that you can achieve the same quality of result if you use the sheet paper mentioned above.

Brushes

When you're working at a bigger size, there will be larger areas to cover so using bigger brushes will make this quicker and easier.

The biggest brush Anna uses is a size 11, and she also uses a size 8.

• Buy bigger brushes in size 8 and 11 from Rosemary & Co. in the UK