The wonderful Word for This Wednesday is ‘Small’

I’ve always loved miniature things.  When I was very small, my dad made me the most amazing doll house EVER and guess what he did?  He made tiny framed pics of our family and some of his photography for the walls!  My mom made the bed spreads and replicas of our couches.   There was even a tiny carton of eggs, a miniature claw foot bathtub, and a teeny fish bowl!  I can picture the entire thing as clear as day.  Such good memories!  I searched high and low for a photo of it, but no cigar (insert sad face).

Meanwhile, I’ve never outgrown my love for small things… I even like small spaces.  We lived on a boat for three years for goodness sakes!

The Inspiration for Small Art

So when I saw Amy Maricle come across on Instagram with a challenge that was working with tiny 2″x2″ squares of watercolor paper, I jumped on the idea.  If you don’t know Amy, she owns Mindful Art Studio and her book, “Draw Yourself Calm, Draw Slow, Stress Less” is one I refer to all the time in my art play.  Look her up, she’s a gift to this world!

I got right to work cutting my 9″x12′ Canson Watercolor paper in little squares, but 2″ squares left some waste, so I switched to 3″ squares and viola!  Perfection.

 

 

Somehow working small gave me WAY more freedom to try new things when playing art.  This was a wonderful discovery!  I don’t want to admit it, but I think the idea of wasting less paper, supplies, and time was the key.  I could try something on a 3×3 piece of my watercolor paper and not feel one tiny bit guilty about throwing it right into the recycle if it was terrible.

I’d like to add that the idea of working in a square format was also very appealing to me.  Symmetry brings me joy.  In the midst of a chaotic and unpredictable life, symmetry grounds me.  Squares are definitely for me!  Circles also please me….but that’s a different post.

 

 

 

Commence Playing Art!

Soon I had stacks of small art work that I could pick through and find inspiration for bigger art work or whatever tooted my horn that day.  Here are just a few from my stacks (and a few I glued into my art journal):

Square Swatches (say that three times fast!)

Furthermore, when I got a new set of watercolors from The Stoneground Paint Company , I used the original 2″ squares to make gradient swatches of the colors so I could move the swatches around and create different color palettes as shown with the sea glass piece below.  Previously, I would make my all of my color swatches for each set on one sheet of paper, but this new idea gave WAY more freedom to mix and match the colors.

A Few of My Favorite Things

I ended up putting some of my small art into these tiny ornate frames that I’ve had kicking around for a decade and I was happy to finally use them!  Then, I also found a shadow box I’ve had since the husband and I got married 21 year ago and used to house a few of my favorite things.  You can see a few of the little square art pieces hanging in there as well!

 

Mostly, the challenge spurred me on in a new direction that I quickly made my own.  I think this is often what different art challenges do for us, would you agree?  Wait… what?  You haven’t ever joined a challenge?  Well, try making small square art for a week and see where it takes YOU!  I’d love to hear how this worked or didn’t work for you.

Kimberly Snider, Virtuoso, Signing off