Women painted by hand in oil

Why figure painting

Figure paintings get hung too high, and the eyes pay for it

With a figure, the eyes are the true centre of the picture, so measure to them rather than to the frame.

Standard advice puts the middle of a picture about 1.45 metres off the floor. On a portrait that often drops the face below where you actually meet it, and the whole painting feels like it is sinking down the wall. Measure to the eyes instead and bring them near standing eye level. Watch the direction of the gaze too — a subject looking out of the room and into a corner closes the wall off.

Scale matters more than people expect. A head painted near life size on a small canvas looks cramped, so go up a size rather than down, and over a sofa aim for roughly two-thirds the width of the furniture. Skin tones are the palette here: warm whites, putty and clay walls flatter them, while cool grey-blues can leave them looking ashen. Avoid the wall directly opposite a window, where raking light catches the impasto and flattens the face.

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.