During finals week (week 18) I found myself doing a couple of small tiny paintings for one reason or another. These were just fun little explorations that were simple and quick.
The first was for the Art Club art exchange during our end-of-semester party. I participated with my club members and contributed a work to be randomly drawn by someone in the club. The actual painting is about 2.5 x 3.5 inches – a combination of pen and ink and watercolor. I think I do better with watercolor flowers that aren’t roses! (Sigh)
The second tiny painting was a personal exchange with a student. The painting is inspired both by a piece by Shepard Fairey’s “Peach Goddess” and also one of the students works submitted that semester. It was a fun exploration of different styles I’m toying around with and was also a combination of both watercolor and pen and ink (also, another tiny painting at around 2 x 3.5 inches).
And lastly, for my dear friends belated birthday card I decided to make something a little more personal and so I created the following tiny piece (around 4 x 5.5 inches) featuring stylized versions of my two cats inspired by the illustrator Dinara Mirtalipova, author of “Imagine A Forest“, which I just purchased recently.
I love Mirtalipova’s contemporary folk style and her latest book is quite wonderful. The writing is down to earth and descriptive without being too linear and step-oriented. The how-to paintings are simple and elegant with lots of room for personal interpretation of the designs. I’ve been a long time fan after stumbling across her stuff on Pinterest a couple of years ago and was really happy when she put out this new book (since her other book of patterns has been difficult to find, even online).
The next few weeks will be a little difficult for me as we’re in the process of moving out of state but hopefully I’ll be able to keep on task and get keep these 52 week posts updated as best as possible. All in all, we’ll be done one way or another by end of July – just hope we find something sooner and move at the end of this month. I’d really like to rip the band-aid off already. (I hate moving.)
Cry The Bird 