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Sunday, March 17, 2013

One Important Benefit of Working Small

'Nest 1'      2.5x3.5     pastel  sold

'Nest 2'    2.5x3.5      pastel

'Nest 3'   2.5x3.5        pastel

'Nest 4'    2.5x3.5        pastel

'Nest 5'      2.5x3.5      pastel

'Nest 6'         2.5x3.5        pastel

'Nest 7'          2.5x3.5          pastel

'Nest 8'          2.5x3.5          pastel

'Nest 9'       2.5x3.5         pastel

'Nest 10'       2.5x3.5      pastel
Something Doug Dawson said really resonated with me.  "Painting 100 small paintings is equal to doing 1000 larger ones."  You will make more progress and get through any learning curve faster if you can paint more paintings.  Smaller ones are faster to do and you have less invested in materials.  You also tend to be more expressive on a smaller piece.

But I have heard from many artists that they don't like to paint small....especially the mini 2.5 x 3.5 size that I love so much!  It is true that we do tend to prefer certain sizes and some of us are just Big canvas painters. But here is one reason you might like to give smaller a try.

"We are all much better designers when we work smaller"   Doug Dawson

This is why we do better work when we do small thumbnail sketches (more on this topic this week) We are limited by size to create a strong design and eliminate the clutter of too many details.  So consider working some smaller quick studies into your painting routine and see where it takes you!

The paintings in today's post are all mini originals 2.5 x 3.5 each. This is my collection for the month of March. They are all available for $15 each in my Etsy shop. Click here to purchase 

6 comments:

Carol Josefiak said...

Good advice, thank you

Beena said...

I had to do lots of thumbnails in design and typography classes. Do I still do thumbnails? Not so much...but I do "studies" many times that are smaller and incomplete pieces to work out any issues before approaching larger pieces. I was recently reading about this one artist who does these gigantic pieces that he says he typically will do a dozen to twenty of on a smaller scale first. Thumbnails or smaller studies are great for working out value issues, along with compositional and color concerns.

Marla said...

I agree so much about being better designers when working small! Somehow I can't really see the composition of a painting when it's too big - maybe it's just the physical parameters of how much I can focus my eyes on at once, how much ends up in peripheral vision - I don't know, but it's very definite. I know the importance of doing thumbnails too and I hardly ever do them! Too impatient to start painting...

Anonymous said...

This makes sense, I shall give it a try!

Sachin said...

Very useful information. Thank you for sharing it.

Anonymous said...

I love sketching and painting nests :) Yours are so beautiful. I am so happy I found your blog! I love your work and you have completely inspired me to return to exploring pastels, practicing them :) I am an avid ATC fan/swapper and visiting your blog and catching up on many of your posts has encouraged me to try some more using pastels. I look forward to your posts.