Six inch square paintings
I bought myself a stack of six inch (15cm) square canvasses. The idea is to produce enough small paintings that I can mount a reasonable sized rectangle of them up on a wall. The advantage is that I can fill one in a day, or two days if they are as detailed as these tended to be. I enjoy making them very much and hope they are varied in colour, shape and composition.
One idea is to use a limited palette for these and for most projects in the future. Less really is more and gives a more unified feel to the work. You may be sure I shall choose different colours for each painting though.
Flowers
For example, I love flowers as much as the next colour-obsessed artist. But I steer clear of them in large paintings. Too fiddly! I am pleased with the dreamy mop-head yellow dahlia (Anglesey Abbey dahlia collection) and the drift of nicotiana (Ringve Botanical Garden in Trondheim). The pink dahlia has, so far, proved tough to photograph accurately.
The yellow dahlia is the best example of a limited palette. It could be completed with white, medium yellow and a greenish blue. Though I may have needed a touch of red to darken the leaf shadows.
Pumpkins
Going through my references, I found a large number of pumpkins snapped at Moroccan markets. Gorgeous, aren’t they? So orange inside and so varied on the outside.
These six are all painted in acrylic because it is faster than oil of course.
They remind me of a farmer’s market stall, showing whatever is ripe in the fields, pumpkins and beans, pumpkins and lemons, gnarly pumpkins with chillis.
These three paintings are all framed.