My dear friend, Kate, came over the other day with a painting project to work on. She's been commissioned to paint a river scene for a Christmas present....the customer desired a watercolor painting with water, sky, a tree line, some mountains, clouds, and some lily pads in the river. Not too hard, right? Even as she described it, I was mentally mapping out how to do it. This was going to be fun and beautiful, too boot! (what does that expression mean?)
Then, with a slightly mischievous twinkle in her eye, she says....it has to be 4x6 or smaller. Whaaaatttt???? lol
After I finished snorting up my coffee in disbelief, I realized that she was serious. I argued and hemmed and hawed for a bit, pouted, stuck my bottom lip out.....used all of the usual successful manipulating tricks (that work on my husband), trying to gain some inches to the painting, or heck, even some millimeters, but alas, to no avail....it must be painted that small.
Now, if ya'll know about my art history, I started out painting as a muralist. Painting small is not my cup of tea (or actually, cup o' Vietnamese coffee) I'd rather spend my time plucking my chin hairs (which I do spend time doing, BTW, considering that I am aging at an alarming rate, but that's another blog for another day) but we had to do it, so we ripped some small paper into tinier pieces of paper and then we ripped them again....into a piece that I would normally throw away as leftover scrap paper or use to scrape the cat food bowl clean so that the pieces don't end up in the sink drain..... aaaaand we started.
The sketching didn't take long and once we started painting, I actually started to enjoy painting small. Who'd have thunk it? (as my 9 year old says) (after which, I correct her grammar as any responsible homeschool mom would do)
Then, with a slightly mischievous twinkle in her eye, she says....it has to be 4x6 or smaller. Whaaaatttt???? lol
After I finished snorting up my coffee in disbelief, I realized that she was serious. I argued and hemmed and hawed for a bit, pouted, stuck my bottom lip out.....used all of the usual successful manipulating tricks (that work on my husband), trying to gain some inches to the painting, or heck, even some millimeters, but alas, to no avail....it must be painted that small.
Now, if ya'll know about my art history, I started out painting as a muralist. Painting small is not my cup of tea (or actually, cup o' Vietnamese coffee) I'd rather spend my time plucking my chin hairs (which I do spend time doing, BTW, considering that I am aging at an alarming rate, but that's another blog for another day) but we had to do it, so we ripped some small paper into tinier pieces of paper and then we ripped them again....into a piece that I would normally throw away as leftover scrap paper or use to scrape the cat food bowl clean so that the pieces don't end up in the sink drain..... aaaaand we started.
The sketching didn't take long and once we started painting, I actually started to enjoy painting small. Who'd have thunk it? (as my 9 year old says) (after which, I correct her grammar as any responsible homeschool mom would do)
All in all, it turned out cute and it was fun....surprisingly! I had thought that I was breaking the "small painting" records by my daisy paintings the other day:
But that was only practice for this painting....lol
Anyhow, thanks for the challenge, Kate and I thought that yours turned out really nicely!
I do doff my theoretical artistic hat to all of the small painters out there! It's tough stuff! The next time I see a lovely small painting, I will study it respectfully for at least a full minute if I don't get distracted by anything else.
hee hee!
Happy Painting!
Anyhow, thanks for the challenge, Kate and I thought that yours turned out really nicely!
I do doff my theoretical artistic hat to all of the small painters out there! It's tough stuff! The next time I see a lovely small painting, I will study it respectfully for at least a full minute if I don't get distracted by anything else.
hee hee!
Happy Painting!
RSS Feed
