Size determines how complex of a design I can make. It's easy for beginners to want to put more and more detail in a design, assuming that that is what makes a piece "good art." You have to consider how far away from a piece the viewer will be. A large painting, someone will view from farther away. The amount of detail also affects the number of colors to use. Some traditional designs simply look better limited to the 2 basic colors: red and black. Some beg for the tertiary blue-green.
Degree of abstraction is another consideration. Do I want my design to look realistic with designs simply incorporated into the configuration of a wolf, say? Or do I want to fill every square inch of the surface and disassemble the design and reassemble to fit accordingly?
Sometimes a surface defines my limitations; sometimes I will design first and then find the material to put the design on.
I have an older killer whale design that I really liked. This was bought by the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage. If you ever get a chance, do visit that place. It's time well spent. The killer whale design will be a modification of the Anchorage piece and will be about 3x larger. So I have lots of leeway in terms of detail!
Here I am preparing the panel I'm going to paint.
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