I took a bit of a break from painting last week to finish up Péchés d’âge moyen, my short collection of twelve original piano miniatures, but by the time “More Little Paintings: Hearts and an Octopus” posted last week, I’d already churned out a total of fifteen of these little guys.

Rather than subject you to week after week of bizarre paintings, I figured I’d dump them all into one post:

That’s the full array of them, hastily photographed as I was running out the door to work Monday morning.  I’ve had a great deal of fun putting them together, and while I have no illusions that I’m some kind of amazing artist, they do possess a certain primitivist, Picasso-esque charm.

The heart-headed Frankenstein’s Monster and the octopus on the right are already spoken for, but I’ll be posting the rest of these bad boys as merch on my Bandcamp merch page pretty soon (possibly by the time you read this post, if I am feeling motivated).

I’ve included here more detailed shots of the paintings I have not featured in past “Little Paintings” posts.  My mom suggested I try my hand at bees, as they’re “in” right now, apparently.  “Bee Happy” came out okay, but my first attempt—what I’ve dubbed “Creepy Bee”—came out pretty wonky:

There’s a reason he is “creepy!”  The flower in “Bee Happy” was the result of a happy accident:  I’d painted a smiley face, but its border was too thick and it looked bizarre.  After attempting in vain to paint back over the black outline and features of the smiley face, I had the idea to paint over the face with dark purple, mimicking a flower that actually grows in my garden (the name of which I am too much of an amateur to know or remember).

The rest are pretty self-explanatory.  You can see my series of octopus paintings, including “Ghostopus,” and the very fun “Psychtopus,” who is using his psychic abilities to… look really intense, I guess?

Here’s the nine newest ones, all laid out for your enjoyment:

I only have nine little 5″x7″ canvasses left, and I hope to fill them all with more whimsical, grotesque paintings.

Happy Tuesday!

—TPP