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I love small format paintings!

I have been intrigued with the various artists in blogdom who do small format paintings. Some do still lifes and studies and some do large scenes in miniature. So far I haven't done many, but of those I've attempted I've found more success with painting smaller still life type set-ups. One of my painting goals is to do more small format paintings.

The fact that they are small seems to erase the anxiety of working hours and hours on something ... faced with the possible disappointment of not having it turn out the way I envisioned it when I started. The small format paintings allow me to plan, paint and see the result in a relatively short amount of time. Sort of like... almost instant gratification.

I like many styles of realistic painting ... from loose and juicy to tightly rendered with lovely brushwork. One of the small format painters I've come to enjoy is Michael Naples whose work is tightly rendered, but whose brushwork sings. I even purchased his little painting of his little girl's Mary Jane shoes to drool over in person. (Now I've given it to my daughter-in-law to enjoy..... I hope she likes it as much as I did.) I also bought a little painting (a surfer which I gave to my son-in-law) from Laura Wambsgans, who paints larger scenes in many formats including these small formats.

They both paint on boards without canvas. I tried the little board that Laura uses and found it much too slippery for my taste. I just couldn't get the paint to grab the way I like it, although she manages to do lovely juicy work using this support. When I asked Michael about it, he said he starts his paintings by painting over the board with black acrylic paint.

I decided to use a canvas board and paint it with black acrylic. That little board had been sitting there on my desk for several days "looking expectantly" at me while I searched for what I wanted to paint. Then my husband brought home a bag of tangerines!! Perfect!

What fun I had last night painting these "Cuties"!

I had painted all day in Johanna's portrait class. The model was Sara Streeter who has been on some "Nip and Tuck" signage... Nice lady. I'd done okay .... had fun .... hadn't created a disastrous painting .... but although it was okay it didn't speak to me. Maybe it's just "okay" because -- like what Silvina was talking about in her recent blog -- I didn't have a concept that I was trying to achieve.

I wanted to paint something that could make me smile. I laid out those little tangerines until I saw a combination I liked. When I put them on my black chair, there was a great muted reflection that I thought looked nice. "Four Cuties" is the result. (I just looked at Michael's site and he just painted some WONDERFUL tangerines... much more finely rendered and painted than mine, but I like mine anyway. ) Whatcha think?? (Of course if anyone would like to have these "Four Cuties" for their very own, just email me an offer.)

I'm off to the opening of "New Beginnings" tonight then to Laguna for a weekend of painting in a workshop with Ray Roberts. Yippee!! Hope your weekend is great too.