I have a new-ish tool that is proving to be indispensable. It certainly isn’t fancy; all it cost me was about 5 minutes of my time. I have been using it every day and wonder why I waited so long before adding it to my arsenal.

It’s a simple frame viewfinder – or “ViewCatcher”, as most art suppliers call it.

You can get a snazzier version for less than $10 that will allow you to change the size of the window, replicating 5 standard proportions. According to the sales pitch, the adjacent tiny hole and neutral gray color will also allow you to isolate and judge color values.

But my homemade version works fine for me.  Using a piece of heavy card stock that’s not quite 6” x 9”, I cut 2 windows: one is a 2” x 3” rectangle and the other is 2” square. I spaced them so that I could fold the card in half, allowing me to easily fit it in the back of a small sketchbook.

Drying Dishes     ©2015 Elizabeth Fram

Looking through the opening gives me a chance to gauge various options in pulling together a composition, and it eliminates the headache of realizing I need to reconfigure my edges once the drawing is already underway.

Iron     ©2015 Elizabeth Fram

I like that it helps me see the subject more abstractly, allowing me to concentrate on shapes and the way they interact with the edges of each drawing. As tools go it may be small and simple, but the benefits are huge.

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Did you know it’s “Inktober”? Begun in 2009 by Jake Parker, it’s a challenge to artists all over the world to create an ink drawing each day in the month of October. You can read more about it here. Are you game?

Glorious October colors from the studio window