Why Decorative Borders Look Uneven and How to Improve Their Spacing

Paint the same border twice, first without guidelines and then with guidelines and you can compare how accurate the spacing has been in the first.

Why do some borders look poorly spaced when viewed from a distance even though you were quite happy with the individual leaves as you painted them? You may have spaced the first few leaves well but, later on, they may have looked a little closer together than the first. Or if you were painting a flower border you may have found the flowers a bit more towards one side of the border line than the other. Alternatively, it may have been a border with a definite unit which looked very good for the first few repetitions, but at the end the last unit seemed to look a bit smaller and closer together because there was a tendency to use more space than was actually available, throughout the painting.

All of these will cause trouble with spacing in a border and will be noticeable to the viewer because he is looking at a repeated rhythm and can easily see that the spaces are not even.

The best way to prevent this happening is to mark the length of the border that is available and divide this into the number of spaces that you require. Draw your guidelines for the border in pencil so that they just indicate where the units start, where the centre is, or where the gaps are to be. It is not necessary to draw in the shapes themselves, unless you find it helpful to do so.

If you paint a practice panel, you can test whether the units themselves take up too much space and leave the background looking too crowded.

If you find that it is difficult to paint the units the same size all the time it may be that they are a little wider at one end than the other, so there would be a gradual change that may not be noticeable at first but would mean that the last units were out of rhythm with the earlier ones.

Try to paint the units the same size with the same brushes, and with the same pressure and quantity of paint on the brush each time. Compare the first few units carefully to be sure you have not left too little room and are going to be forced to cram the last unit in. It is always better to alter the space a little for the following unit if necessary, rather than crowd the last one in to the remaining space.

When a border is painted on a curved surface, for example on a plate or a curved panel or ornament it will not always look equal if you measure it and find that it is equally spaced. A curve can make equal spaces look uneven and it is often better to follow the natural line of the curve. Units painted on a curved surface, or on an arched ornament, may have to follow the curve instead of looking as though they are standing upright.

If you are painting with or without guidelines, check the finished border to see that it is all moving along well and looks balanced. Do not worry about minute details; just look at the general shape to see that everything is moving along nicely. It is all relative and nothing can ever be identical, but a border or ornament should look quite natural.