Why Your Small Diamond Painting Lacks Detail
Here’s something experienced diamond art painters know: Sometimes, bigger is better when it comes to the canvas size of your diamond art kit.
This might not be good news for those new to the craft. Smaller paintings are less expensive and can make more sense when you’re first trying diamond art painting.
But it’s important to have realistic expectations. If you’ve tried or are considering a small diamond art painting, know that it won’t look as detailed or realistic as a larger painting.
We’ll explain why and how to choose the best size for your next diamond painting.
Diamond Art is Pixel Art
Turning a design or painting into a diamond art template involves breaking the image down into individual pixels, or dots. Each dot is a space for a diamond drill.
Diamond drills are always the same size: 2.8mm. If we made them any smaller, they’d be impossible to handle!
Of course, that means if you shrink the design to a smaller canvas, a single diamond will cover more area on the design.
On a large canvas, an image of an eye may be several pixels. When you paint it with diamonds, you could have different colors in the eye… which means it would look more realistic on a large canvas.
But if you were to shrink that same picture to a small canvas, the eye could be reduced to just one pixel, one diamond and one color. Definitely not as realistic!
The small canvas would look more “pixelated”, which means the individual dots (or diamonds in this case) would be noticeable. Pixelated diamond art is a look you want to avoid. We’ll tell you how!
What a Difference Larger Diamond Art Really Makes
This popular Soulmates painting is an example of a semi-small canvas — 13x11” (33x28cm).
You’ll notice it has a lot of color variation, but overall there’s not as much detail as, say, a face. It’s impressionistic, not realistic.
What would happen if we blew the Soulmates design up to fit a larger canvas? We’d simply get more detail into this painting. You’d see the fine tips of the girl’s hair in silhouette, even after you apply the diamonds.
As you can see, on the smaller size, a lot of detail is lost.. You wouldn’t see small stars as individual diamonds. Where one color turns to another in the night sky or the water, there’s less subtlety.
Here is the original source image for reference.
Now you can see why it makes sense to size up your diamond painting if you love a design with a lot of detail.
Diamond Paintings That Should Always Be Large
Where Light and Dark Meet is a perfect example of detailed diamond art that works on a large canvas. This wolf and moonlit night design comes in a portrait-shaped 52cm x 70cm design size
It’s one of our larger diamond art paintings and you can see why. The texture of the wolf’s fur would be lost on a smaller canvas.
Or, take Nefertiti as another example. It looks realistic in the 32cm x 52cm pasting area size. The colors blend well and the picture is simply stunning.
Reducing the size of either design wouldn’t make sense. You’d lose what makes these diamond art paintings great. That’s why we only offer these designs in larger canvas sizes.
Does That Mean You Shouldn’t Choose Small Diamond Art Paintings?
We definitely recommend trying a large canvas to get all that glorious detail into your next masterpiece. Especially if you’re serious about diamond art.
But there are reasons you might want a smaller diamond painting:
- You’re just starting out and not ready for a huge commitment
- You need to make something quickly, for example, as a gift
- It’s for a child or someone who wouldn’t be able to complete a large canvas
- You have a small space in your home you’d like to decorate
Don’t worry! A small diamond painting can be perfect. You just need to know how to choose.
Look for bolder, simpler designs that are abstract or impressionistic. Paintings that are simple in design and have a limited number of colors are ideal for a smaller canvas.
Here are some examples of popular small-sized diamond art designs. You can see why they work!
Coffee Cup (8” x 7”)
Choose the Right Size Diamond Art Painting
At Diamond Art Club, our canvases come in a range of sizes, from 6.7″ x 6.7″ (17cm x 17cm) to 24″ x 36″ (60.96cm x 91.44cm). Whether you want a portrait-oriented painting (longer vertically), a landscape-oriented painting (longer horizontally) or a square painting, we have many choices available.
