Tom Roberts and the light he chased

Why Roberts

Roberts painted big, and the scale is part of the picture

His major pastoral works are wall-sized, and reproducing them too small throws away the very thing that makes them work.

Shearing the Rams is roughly 1.2 by 1.8 metres, and that size is not decoration, it is the point. Roberts filled the frame with a working crowd, a dozen figures at different depths, and at 60 centimetres wide those figures collapse into a brown smudge. Hand-painted in oils, the shed dust and the sheen on the fleece are built from real brushwork, so give the brush room to be seen.

Go a metre wide or more for the pastoral and street scenes, and keep the centre at about 145 centimetres from the floor. His palette is dust, ochre, olive and warm grey, which quietly fights cool grey-blue walls and cold white LED downlights. Warm white bulbs and an off-white, putty or soft green wall let it sit properly. If your wall is short, take a Mentone beach study or a single-figure sketch instead of shrinking a crowd.

How your painting is made

1. Choose the size and finishSeven standard sizes from 60 × 50cm to 200 × 135cm. Stretched ready to hang, rolled, or one of our frames. The size guide on every painting shows it to scale.
2. Painted to order, by handA university-trained artist paints your piece in oils on canvas, working from the original. Two to three weeks at the easel, then drying time.
3. Stretched, framed, checkedGallery-wrapped or framed in our workshop, then photographed and checked before it leaves.
4. Delivered free, Australia-wideMade to order in 21 to 28 days, then tracked to your door. Thirty-day money-back guarantee if it isn't what you hoped.