[Chris Saper]

Dear Beth,

I'm not sure how much of size preference has to do with a "rule of thumb", or just what painters personally prefer. I prefer to work so that the head is somewhere between 50% and 90% of life size. Life size heads (usually, but not always) for me take on an odd visual quality. Even in intimate conversation, you are not really seeing a life-sized head; so standing at a viewing postion to a canvas, you would be farther away, and the head would appear smaller. Smaller than 50% is just too small a work space for me, although I have seen many, many painters use a smaller scale beautifully.

I think I probably developed this comfort scale because I learned to paint portraits from life. One of my teachers, Phil Beck, taught me to place the head by splaying the fingers, in such a way that if you were to place them on your own head, thumb on chin, the longest fingertip would generally touch your hairline...and to use that distance as the full head starting point on your canvas.

With respect to more complete figure work, I always first determine the size of the head, then measure the other body landmarks in comparison to the size of the head.

From Sharon K's posts, I know that she uses a sense of "classic" proportion in determining size, and hopefully she will share more of this.

I'm not sure if this is what you are asking, but hope it is helpful.