Maritime Miniatures

I'm still experimenting with the small 3 1/2 by 5 inch paintings, as they seem like a perfect size to give as a gift to people. After all, art is so subjective, and who wants to do a huge or even mid-sized painting for someone as a gift, only to see that they are merely being polite in accepting it!

But with these small ones you can put them just about anywhere. I've branched out into doing Canadian scenes again and show below here the three new scenes I did. One of them is photographed showing the small pre-cut mat I bought for each of them. It dresses them up nicely and makes them look like real paintings. LOL.

These three minis are also scenes that I did previously as larger paintings, so you can compare the minis with the "big sisters" by going here, or here, or here.

Highland Games

Since painting my sister's house, and my brother-in-law's boat, I thought it would be fun to paint a small mini-picture for each member of their family as a Christmas gift. One thing nice about a painting that is only 3 1/2 by 5 inches - if they hate it they don't have to try to give it prominent houseroom! And if they like it they should still find a way to display it, even if their home is small.

So I had to think what I would paint for my niece and nephews. Paige, my niece, was up in Canada this summer with me and her mom. On July 1, Canada Day, we went to the Highland Games in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. We saw the parade and watched the drummers and pipers, and ate lobster rolls - but we had the most fun watching the heavyweight Highland games - brawny young men in kilts throwing a variety of large objects. :-)

Paige had a great time watching them, so I did this painting for her, to remind her of this summer. Now I just have to think what I will do for my two nephews! It's much harder to think what I should paint for them.

Boston Whaler

I'm still on a mini-painting kick, doing paintings that are only 3 1/5 by 5 inches. It's an very interesting experience. I'm not sure what I'm learning from it, but it has definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone.

This is one I did tonight of my brother-in-law Chad's Boston Whaler, parked in the back yard of the house in the previous painting. :-)

Amy's House

I had such fun painting my friend Karen's house yesterday that I decided to keep trying again. Gosh I don't know how people do these miniatures. This one today is of my sister Amy's house, a lovely early 20th century home in coastal North Carolina. It's even smaller than yesterday's painting - only 3 1/2 inches by 5. Phew.

Karen's House

Tonight I'm going to my friend Karen's birthday party. It's being held at her church and she specifically asked for no gifts, saying if anyone felt obliged to bring something they could bring food for the Food Pantry.

So I have some food to bring, but wanted to give her something anyway, even if small. So today I painted this portrait of her house. But I really meant it when I said I wanted something small. I mean she might hate it after all, LOL. And if it was too big she would be stuck with this big thing she didn't even want. So this portrait is only 4 x 6 inches. I'm not used to working tiny, so this was a real challenge to try to capture an image in such a small area.

Penguins in Progress

We were talking in art class last week about art shows with "themes". A couple women had been doing bird paintings, and we talked about maybe do a show that was all bird paintings. And someone said that the Turtle Back Zoo had an art gallery, and maybe we could have a show there. We all smiled at the idea and said we would have to paint pictures of birds and/or animals.

That got me thinking, and I realized I have have a lot of photos actually taken at the Turtle Back Zoo itself, and maybe some would make some nice reference photos. This is one I took a few years ago of the penguins at the zoo. Who doesn't love a penguin? LOL. The penguins at the zoo are African Penguins. I always get a chuckle out of that as if one conjures up a mental image of "African Wildlife" it is not generally penguins that come to mind. :-)

I call this Penguins in Progress and I don't think I'm actually done with it yet. I'm still not satisfied with the background, and not sure I'm fully satisfied with the penguins themselves. But this is the point I reached last night so decided to post it anyway - and will see where I go from here.

The Rookery

This part Saturday I had a busy day - from 9 AM until almost 7 PM receiving for the Pastel Society of New Jersey's juried art show, and then helping to hang the show. I entered my painting 'The Old Farm Pantry' which I was pretty happy with, and I was so bummed that it got juried out of the show. :-(

I brought it to art class tonight to ask for a critique from Christina to see what was wrong with it, but she liked it! Said she thought it was a charming painting with nothing at all wrong with it and could not see why it had been kicked out of the show, and told me not to give up on it as she liked it a lot. . Why couldn't the judge have liked it also?

Of the 6 of us working at the PSNJ show on Saturday, 3 of us had our paintings rejected! Maybe working at the show is unlucky, LOL.

Anyway it was fun and refreshing to get back to art class tonight, and I worked on this painting which is taken from a reference photo I took at the Great Gaspe Pifflefest in 2005. This was just past the Perce Rock on our way to the Ile de Bonaventure. Bonaventure is home to an incredibly vast breeding colony of Northern Gannets, but on the way there, all along Perce Rock itself, there were dozens and dozens of cormorant. I loved it there!