My Favorite Painting Tool

I like paper, paint brushes, and paint, but my favorite painting tool is a viewfinder.  I was introduced to this handy, dandy tool on the first night of painting class.  I was feeling nervous and not sure what to expect.  When I was given the viewfinder and told how to use it, my anxiety went down immensely.

You use a viewfinder to compose what you are going to paint.  For now, what works best for me is to break up the horizontal and vertical frames into 4 equal pieces.  It's a bit tricky to hold the viewfinder in one place, look through it with only one eye open, and draw on your painting surface, but it gets easier with practice.

I made the bottom one myself using a light weight piece of cardboard.  Heavy card stock would probably also work.  I outlined a square pad of post-it notes and cut out the square.  Viola!  For a different aspect ratio, you can easily make an appropriate viewfinder or use one like the composition finder in the picture.  On the back, it shows different aspect ratios and there's a sliding piece that blocks out to just the aspect ratio that you want.

If I'm working directly from a picture, I just draw lines directly on the picture.