During The Age of The Virus I took up painting as a little hobby, and came to enjoy it.  Let me emphasize the word “hobby“—I am not a skilled painter, and while I have sold a few of my works (mostly to family members), it’s been an overall money-losing excursion.

I attempted to sell paintings at the South Carolina Bigfoot Festival last October, and managed to unload a single painting.  Of course, the little girl who purchased that painting loved it; it was a strange, whale-like creature that she took to be the Loch Ness Monster, and she adored it.  It’s one of the few paintings I failed to photograph, so I can’t show it here, but that’s immaterial—it was sweet seeing that little girl’s face light up.

Of course, the brightening of little girl’s faces doesn’t put cornflakes on the table, so I’m officially proclaiming my foray into painting as a possible commercial endeavor a failure.  As a hobby, though, it’s something I still enjoy doing, and I’ll do some light sales on the side for anyone interested.  Otherwise, I’m not going to push it aggressively as a possible revenue stream.

For those that are interested, I use these little canvasses for my paintings (note—that link is an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a small portion of any purchase made through that link, at no additional cost to you).  Like everything, they’ve gone up in price, but they’re a pretty good deal for small (5″x7″), thin canvasses, and they’re easy to use.  There’s also an adorable 3″x5″ variety, which I am excited to try.  I like the idea of index card-sized paintings.

With that, here is 23 February 2023’s “TBT: Little Paintings“:

Astute readers may have picked up on my love for little things:  bric-a-brac, LEGOs, short piano pieces, etc.  In that regard, I am like a little old lady with her Precious Moments or Hummel figurines.

To self-indulgently psychoanalyze myself, I think this love the miniature comes, in part, from my own girthful size.  I’ve always been big (and, frequently and currently, fat), so there’s something appealing about disappearing into a tiny little world.  My brothers know that I am exceptionally good at disappearing during family social functions—usually to read a book or to take a nap in some forgotten corner of whatever relative’s house we’re visiting.

Even in fantasy roleplaying games (RPGs for my n00b friends), I like to play small rogues—halfling thieves, Wood Elf bards, etc.  That stealthy, crafty quality appeals to me, especially in a compact package.

Regardless of why I like small things, I do.  That is certainly the case with the arts; besides piano miniatures, I like short stories, and blogging is, in many ways, short-form essay writing.

That extends to painting, too, and a collection of small canvasses that I slowly turned into a substantial body of amateurish works.

With that, here is 22 February 2022’s “Little Paintings“:

As last Tuesday’s post suggests, I’ve really been getting into small forms of art:  miniatures.  Short musical pieces are fun to compose, and can be dashed off (and, hopefully, recorded) in mere minutes.

I’ve also always been a lover of bric-a-brac—little tiny figurines and collectibles and the like—and am drawn to them in part because of their tiny size.  I have a random assortment of such bric-a-brac on my desk at this very moment—an R2-D2 figurine; a little pumpkin finger puppet; a LEGO Han Solo; a little ghost—and have other little figurines in various places in my home.

Not surprisingly, I’ve also come to really enjoy small paintings.

Back when I was getting ready for the most recent Halloween Spooktacular, I particularly enjoyed painting mugs, which I sold/attempted to sell at the concert.  I had plenty of acrylic paint leftover from the Spring Jam (where children painted birdhouses), and for Christmas I received some little 5″x7″ canvases.

Amusingly enough, I discovered these canvases when looking for Christmas presents for my three-year old (as of today!) nephew.  I was looking at his Amazon wishlist (his mom put it together, not him), and found the canvases… so I added them to my wishlist.  That means I have the same tastes as a toddler.

Regardless, I cracked open the canvases and set about with my first stumbling attempts at painting.  The first I painted was a pastoral scene, which I entitled “Apple Picking” (also featured in this past Sunday’s Sunday Doodles):

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I decided to do something with a heart.  I really like to use hearts in my artwork and doodles, but I thought it might be fun to do something a bit different, and fuse Valentine’s Day with one of my favorite holidays, Halloween:

After letting the paint dry a bit, I added some additional details—the blood splatter from Cupid’s arrow piercing through the heart-head; gray on the arrow; and additional detail on the cowl:

I’ve had two proposed names for this painting: “Frankentine” and “Valenween.”  “Frankentine” has a great ring to it, but the figure in this picture doesn’t seem Frankensteinian enough.  I also thought “Valoween” would be a good variation on “Valenween.”

What do you think?  Leave a comment.  Oh, and if you were to purchase artwork, what would you pay for one of these (if anything!)?  Let me know!

Happy Tuesday!

—TPP