For the past couple of months I’ve been trying something really fun and different: Instead of working on large scale paintings I’ve mostly been doing a whole bunch of small, 10 inch by 10 inch, square paintings. Some are newspaper collage, some are just regular paper collage, some are abstract, and some are just whimsical. It’s been an extraordinarily fun way to try new techniques and test out new ideas in a low stakes way. I don’t have to worry if it’s a masterpiece or not, it’s just an experiment! It’s like throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. And if it’s a failure…it’s not that big a deal! Literally, because they are tiny. Ha.

I’ve tried some things that I would normally consider silly, like my fire and ice painting with tissue paper–totally off topic for me, but I had an absurd amount of fun turning tissue paper and paint into flames and ice:

 

Any the skyscrapers floating on the clouds–that’s just a visual pun and Star Wars reference that I wanted to do, so I did it. No larger point about anything intended.

And I would never have tried to do a Boston skyline–too overdone! But the colors and reflections caught my eye in a photo I saw and I just decided to give it a try.

I’ve had a couple of super ugly failures that I finally gave up on and turned into something else and they’re still not there yet–but I think they’ll get there!

I’ve learned a lot and tackled some things I definitely wouldn’t have if they’d been full size paintings. One of my main goals for my art this year is to push myself in new directions. And these little paintings allowed me to challenge myself by not taking myself too seriously, which has been amazing–and hopefully something I can bring to my regular-sized paintings!