So what are smalls? Smalls are small pieces of artwork. It’s kinda artist talk. I’m not sure if I’ve heard of them referred to as smalls by anyone else other than artists. Anyway, I’m calling them smalls.

I started these smalls by taping off a large piece of watercolor paper into 16 finished sections of 5″x7″. However, I screwed up and had to re-tape a few of them, luckily I noticed early on.

I knew I wanted to create abstracts with these and possibly some mixed media and/or collage. Also, I knew I wanted a bit of a botanical feel on some of them. After I taped them off, I prepared my paint palette with limited colors, allowing myself to mix those colors for even more yet cohesive and harmonious hues.

Loosely painting strokes and blobs into forms. Some turned out extremely abstract as in totally non representational and others have a definite botanical vibe. That’s a great thing about creating smalls, I can create lots of little paintings and try lots of different techniques at once.

Creating smalls and documenting

Above is not a finished painting, but I stopped midway and snapped a photo. It’s hard to document your work and stay in the zone at the same time. Recently, I listened to a favorite podcast (The Art Biz with Alyson Stanfield) that was about creating videos of you creating art. Alyson went on to say it’s important for an artist to leave a legacy of their art through these videos.

She also said that Jean-Michel Basquiat had tons of footage even in the 1990’s when we didn’t have smart phones equipped with cameras and video recorders at our fingertips. So maybe he just had a camera crew following him around? I’m not sure but I know it’s just me down here and there’s no camera crew.

I do my best at trying to get snippets here and there. It’s still a little awkward for me to be in the video talking to my phone. I’ve thought about printing out a person’s face and taping it to the camera so I’d have someone to talk to!

In the photo above, I’m inspecting my work after having removed the tape. Removing the tape was very satisfying, I have to say. I made a video so you could enjoy it as well, ha ha.

Zoey didn’t care about the tape removal. She just wants to be with me no matter where I’m at. My sweet girl, my ever faithful studio companion. Even though it hurts her to walk up and down those stairs, she still follows me. Her devotion is so incredibly humbling and it will rip my heart out when she’s no longer with me. She’s either 15 or 16 years old now. I’m not sure because when I adopted her, they were unsure so the vet guessed her to be 2 or 3 when she came home with us. She’s at my feet now as I type this, snoring away.

A sneaky peek at the final paintings just about to get cut apart.

Finally, I took these smalls to the latest show I went to at Alexandrian Library September 24th. It was a MiniCon, not my best audience (but still fun), plus I didn’t have them displayed very well. Consequently, I came home with all of them. I need to photograph them and get them listed. Stay tuned and I’ll just post some photos of them on my blog first since that’s the easiest and fastest. They make great gifts and are what I like to call a gateway drug into collecting original art. 😉

← Prepping for Hoosier Salon Gallery /  I’m having a Leaf Printing Class ⟶

Learn more about me on the ‘About’ page under the additional links menu. I’m an artist – a painter mostly and an avid gardener. I paint a variety of subjects including birds, koi fish, my gardens, ponds and flowers as well as anything having to do with nature especially trees and tropical scenes. I also enjoy painting abstracts and have started created more and more of them. My most favorite thing to try to achieve in my painting is is mystery and telling mystical stories.

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