The Fairview Finder 3.0 is here.
Frame your scene. Choose your story. Paint with confidence.
The Fairview Finder helps painters make stronger composition decisions before the first brushstroke. Use it to test crops, simplify big shapes, and lock your design in the field or in the studio.
Version 3.0 Ships April 17, 2026.
Join the Waitlist for Early Access
The simple tool for stronger paintings.
The Fairview Finder 3.0 helps painters make better decisions before the first brushstroke. Frame your scene, test crops across five painting proportions, and simplify the clutter into big, paintable shapes.
The front side is your Design Check. Composition, focal placement, and value structure, all visible before you commit. Flip it over for the Story Check. The questions that turn a good composition into a painting with something to say.
Version 3.0 now includes the Square Format Finder for artists who work on square panels, crop for Instagram, or paint with centered compositions. Two Finders. Four working surfaces. One free manual.
Lightweight, durable, and built for the field. Patent pending. Designed by a working painter and instructor.
Frame your scene. Choose your story. Paint with confidence.
What's New in Version 3.0
Design Check (front side). Frame your scene, test crops across five painting proportions, and check your composition before you commit. Updated reference guides for value motifs, focal placement, and composition types are printed right on the tool.
Story Check (back side). Flip the Finder over. The back side walks you through the questions that turn a good composition into a painting with something to say. What drew you here? Where does the eye go first? What can you leave out?
Completely rewritten manual (free download). The new Fairview Finder Manual covers everything: how to use both sides, how to read the Design and Story Checks, and how to build a five-minute pre-painting routine that sharpens every decision you make before the brush hits the surface.
Now includes the Square Format Finder. Version 3.0 ships with a square format companion. Same philosophy, same build quality, designed for artists who paint on square panels, crop for Instagram, or work with centered and symmetrical compositions. It's not an add-on. It comes in the box.
Built to speed up three decisions. Design, Story and Freshness. The three things that separate a confident start from a painting you fight with for two hours.
Five tools in one package. Two Finders. Two sides each. One free manual. Everything you need to start stronger.
The Fairview Finder 3.0
The Fairview Finder is a precision composition tool for painters. Use it in the field or in the studio to frame your scene, test crops across five common painting proportions, and simplify what you see into clear, paintable shapes before you pick up a brush.
Version 3.0 gives you two sides and two tools.
Design Check (front side): Frame, crop, compare, and commit. The printed reference guides for value motifs, composition types, and focal placement are right there when you need them.
Story Check (back side): The questions that turn a good design into a painting with something to say. What drew you here? Where does the eye land? What can you leave out?
The 3.0 package includes the Square Format Finder for artists who work on square panels or crop for social media. Two Finders. Four working surfaces. One free manual.
Three Things Strong Paintings Have in Common
1. A clear composition. Composition is how you arrange shapes so the viewer's eye has a path and the painting has a priority. One main idea, supported by quieter shapes. The goal is not perfection. It is clarity.
How the Finder helps: hold it up, test multiple crops, and choose the one that reads best from ten feet away.
2. Intentional focal placement. Strong paintings are designed, not discovered by accident. The Finder includes proportion guides and Golden Ratio marks to help you place your focal area on purpose.
How the Finder helps: once you choose a crop, use the guides to set where the eye lands first. Then protect that spot by keeping everything else quieter.
3. Grounded values. Value structure is what makes a painting read. Clear lights, middles, and darks organized across background, middle ground, and foreground. Values create depth, focus, and impact.
How the Finder helps: squint through the window and group the scene into big value families before you start. If the values do not read in the frame, the painting may not read on the wall.
Design gives clarity. Story gives meaning. Freshness gives life.
The Fairview Finder bridges intuition and technique. It gives you a fast, repeatable way to frame the scene, simplify the design, and start with a plan. Less guessing. Less overworking. More confidence from the first brushstroke.
The Fairview Finder Philosophy
This tool is designed to make itself unnecessary.
Use it enough and you will stop needing it. That is the point. Every time you hold it up, frame a scene, test a crop, check your values, and ask yourself what the story is, you are training your eye to do those things without it. The decisions get faster. The instincts get sharper. The habits stick.
Most painters spend years developing that kind of seeing. Some never get there because nobody showed them what to look for. The Finder compresses that learning curve. It puts the right questions in your hands and makes you answer them before you start.
One day you will be standing in the field without it, and you will frame the scene in your mind, place the focal area by instinct, and check the values, and feel the scene’s narrative, before you touch a brush. You will not think about the tool. You will just see better.
That is the goal. Not a product you depend on. A practice that becomes part of how you see and create.
Until then, it is the best five minutes you can spend before you start painting.
What Artists are saying
“Such a totally awesome concept!.”
“I will be so happy to get mine! It takes the guesswork out! So many times, I have chosen the wrong size canvas for the painting! Thank you for coming up with this!.”
“I'm so impressed that the Fairview Finder serves to help "see" the potential composition clearly ( as expected), and additionally has printed reference information to help with value, contrast, and movement right on its margins!”
“Landscapes landscapes landscapes! I stare at them every day and still can't quite get them right. Anything to help would be priceless!”
“Thank you very much, Steve. The "grounded value motifs" will be a great tool for guiding thumbnails and the design of larger works. ”
“The viewfinder looks amazing to use outside and guides us to focus on a view that supports our intended point of interest and composition.
I would be curious to try using it another way. We all have these great first washes that we love and then ruin in the second layer. Could the viewfinder be used to look at that first wash and help us plan the second layer regarding placing points of interest, composition, and values?
You could even cover the first wash with acetate and draw in some general guidelines to test out compositions… I would love to try that!”
“I am really enjoying using mine..it sure helps determine what areas in the scene I think would work!”