Five at a Time

This was an interesting experiment that, fortunately, turned out well. I am pleased. I had been reworking larger soupy winter scenes and loosening up my brush work quite a bit, as well as the ways in which I delineate masses and forms. I have worked in series before and I had worked in small format with watercolor and ink paintings, but I hadn't tried tiny oils in a while. And I did it step by step on Facebook. Kind of brazen of me. It could have been an epic fail, but it wasn't.

Below, is the first. All white tiny white Masonite boards ready to go. Bing, bing, bing.

Here we have works in progress. It started with the horizon, distant trees, then added snow and brush.

Look at that, some happy trees!

Where did that red come from? Non of these are alike. I am letting myself explore and have fun.

The snow apparently, does not fall the same way in these woods twice. 

Now, to snow or not to snow, that is the question. Flake making is a particular art form. They must be random rather than evenly spaced, sparse, and tiny. You must also include flakes on all surfaces, including the white ones, otherwise its just not snowing.

Below are the final versions, with snow, without a signature. I am going to let them dry and then sign them on top of the dried layers, that way I can rub it out and try again if my hand shakes too much. The signature is sometimes the hardest part!

Postscript: I had carefully measured and planned the size of these paintings, 3.5 x 5 inches to fit in standard size picture frames, some of which I had in stock, though currently occupied by my dearly departed whom I was loath to re-locate. Apparently with the advent of the digital age, people are no longer printing small photos, hence small picture frames are no longer reliably stocked by your local big box store and the selection available is very low end. People are now keeping their valuable photo memories on their cell phones or other devices. Much more convenient, if you ask me, however, I now need to devise an alternative framing scheme. With some research I have decided to put these each within a floating frame which is much larger than the work itself. I think that the added white space around them will definitely enhance their appearance and set them off more from surroundings.