Minature Canvas

How to Scale Your Artwork Up or Down

If you have ever wondered how murals are painted so accurately? Well there are a couple of nifty tricks artists use. Some use a projector linked into a computer to upscale their image onto the wall, but many use a grid system to scale their work up from the original size onto the wall.

We are going to look at the how the grid system works.

First the artist plans out their illustration or lettering piece.
Then they divide the image into squares. The size of the squares depend on how complicated the design is.
Say their design was on a piece of paper 20cms by 20cms. They would draw their squares 2 cms  by 2 cms.
Then they would upscale their squares and draw them onto the wall to 20 cms by 20 cms

Once they have this done, they will copy whatever is within each 2cm by 2cm square onto the 20cm by 20cm on the wall.
Then they fill in each square according to their original illustration.

Confusing isn't it? Don't worry we are going to go through it step by step in this exercise.
Unfortunately we don’t have a wall to paint a mural on for this exercise. However we are able to go the opposite way and turn our illustration or lettering piece into a miniature.

You will need
Miniature Canvas
Paper and pencil
Thin textas and/or paints
Ruler
Light pencil
Lots of patience

Take a piece of paper and cut it to 20cms by 20 cms. Draw out your image. Make it fit your whole page. Make sure your proportions are working well, your colours are clear and simple, any details you want to stand out are clear.

Tip You may need to draw you image in a simpler form and keep the details to be added after you have transferred your image to the canvas.

Now with a ruler and light pencil, carefully draw your squares, depending on how complicated your image is you can draw them 5cms by 5cms or 2cms by 2cms. Put a little number at the top of each square.

Now on your canvas draw in the squares half the size of  your first squares. So if you had 5cm by 5cm squares then you would reduce them to 2.5cms by 2.5cms and 2cms by 2 cms squares would become 1cm by 1cm. You get the idea!

Now the fun bit. Concentrating on each square individually, using your knowledge of shape and space, copy what you see onto the canvas, staying inside the reduced sized square. Continue until you have reproduced of your illustration in miniature onto the canvas.

Now paint or colour your miniature illustration using your original as a guide. You can use a fine liner to add any extra details.

Now that you have had a go see if you can scale your drawings up and down. The more you practise the more acurate you will get.