Cheap Joe’s Thumbnailer Sketching Template

Every artist knows the value of thumbnail sketches to a successful painting, which is why we designed the Cheap Joe’s Thumbnailer Sketching Template. We want to make the creative process easier! This thumbnail sketch stencil features windows sized to standard canvas and paper ratios, taking the guesswork and math out of the equation when it comes time to translate your composition onto the right size canvas or paper.

Making creative decisions and pre-planning with compositional sketches can fall prey to a common problem: you create a great composition in your thumbnails, but when it’s time to move to the canvas, that nicely planned idea falls apart if your canvas or paper has different proportions than your thumbnail sketch box. This handy tool features 11 windows with ratios 1:1, 1:2, 2:3, 3:4, 3:5, 4:3, 4:5, 5:7, and 11:14, plus a full/quarter watercolor paper sheet ratio. Comes with a guide to which aspect ratios correspond to which substrate size in inches.

At 5″ x 8″ and as thin as a piece of paper, it tucks easily into your sketchbook to keep at the ready. Use it to quickly draw thumbnail sketch boxes, knowing you’ll have the right proportions for the final artwork or the right thumbnail size for your existing canvas. Made of thin yet durable 9 mil plastic, use it with pens, pencils, markers, and even paint brushes.

The Thumbnailer also makes a great viewfinder, whether looking for a scene to paint or cropping a good composition from a photograph.