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How paintings are made
Six stages, one canvas, and no shortcuts.
Every ByMuseum reproduction is built up in oil, layer over layer, by a painter working from the original. This is what happens between your order and the canvas arriving at your door.
The process
From bare canvas to finished painting.
The same six stages, whichever masterpiece you choose. Photographed on an actual commission.
1
The drawing
The composition is drawn onto primed canvas in pencil — proportions, placement, the tilt of the head. Everything that follows is built on getting this right.
2
Blocking in
The figure goes down first — hat, face, coat — while the background is left bare. Judging the head against raw canvas keeps the flesh tones honest.
3
Building the form
The background is laid in around the figure and the whole picture appears at once. It is still loose here; nothing is finished until everything is.
4
Refining
Faces, hands and fabric are brought up to the original’s level of detail, and the colour is corrected against the reference again and again.
5
The texture
Paint is loaded on where the original carries it. This is the layer that catches the light on your wall, and the one no print can reproduce.
6
Final checks
The canvas is compared against the original a last time, left to cure, then photographed before it is packed.
The result
The original, and the canvas we painted.
Finished commissions photographed in the studio before they shipped. Judge the work for yourself.
The original
Our canvas
The original
Our canvas
The original
Our canvas
Materials
What your painting is actually made of.
Paint
Artist-grade oil
Real oil paint, mixed on a palette and applied with a brush. Not ink, not acrylic, not a print with texture added on top.
Surface
Primed artist canvas
Rolled for shipping so it travels safely, ready for your framer to stretch or frame however you like.
Painting time
7–15 days
Typical time at the easel, plus drying between layers. Larger and more detailed works sit at the longer end.
Why it takes time
Oil cannot be hurried.
Each layer has to set before the next one goes on. Rush it and the colours turn muddy and the surface never settles. That waiting is exactly what produces the depth you see when light moves across the finished canvas.
It is the one part of the process that cannot be optimised, and the reason a real oil painting still takes as long today as it did for the artist who painted the original.
Have one painted for you.
Choose from 33,000 masterpieces and a painter will start on yours. Free worldwide shipping, and 90 days to change your mind.
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