minis and miniature art

Blue Blooded mini, copyright Teresa Mallen, coloured pencil on colourfix paper, 6" w x 2 3/4" h

Here are some minis I have been working on this past week. The piece above and the one below are approximately six inches wide by three inches wide. Both are done in coloured pencil on colourfix paper. I had a lot of fun doing these. If you have been following my blog for a while, the mini above might look a bit familiar. It was inspired by my work entitled  Blue Blooded.

Mini # 2, copyright Teresa Mallen, coloured pencil on colourfix paper, 6 1/2 " w x 3" h

My motivation to create some smaller works started last fall. Some of you might recall that I was working with ink and cps and I was dashing off small works of feathers and fruit and such. I eventually got a bit bored with this so I stopped.

Then last November, I purchased the drawing magazine pictured on the left. The cp portrait on the cover is the art of Kerry Brooks. I was surprised to learn that Kerry not only works quite big but she has also done very detailed, smaller works (3" x 4" for example). 

The seeds of inspiration were sown and I soon started pondering doing some cp minis (as I call them). I must confess previously having an aversion to working small simply because I am not that keen on squishing tons of detail into a tiny area, and well, I like detail! But hey, when the muse beckons... :-)

Mini Rose #1, copyright Teresa Mallen
4  3/4" w x 3  3/4" h, coloured pencil on Stonehenge paper

Miniature Art is a very interesting genre. I find it fascinating that people use magnifying glasses in order to place teeny, tiny brush strokes on intricate originals the size of postage stamps. There are miniature art societies in countries all around the globe.

Of course there was the eruption of ATCs (2.5 x 3.5 inches) onto the art scene a few years back. Millions of artist trading cards were created and swapped. Later many artists transitioned into ACEOs (art cards,editions and orginals), selling these art cards during the Daily Painter craze. I saw an enormous amount of bad art back then as people jumped on the bandwagon of creating quickly and making sales. I am glad this fad seems to be over. I am not knocking the Daily Painters out there, the ones still standing are doing excellent work, just saying I had a thing about those ATCs... :-)

So, to be clear, my intent is not to create miniatures in the formal sense of the word and I am not working ATC size nor am I considering these ACEOs.

Mini Rose # 2, copyright Teresa Mallen
3 3/4" w x 3 1/4 " h, coloured pencil on Stonehenge paper

The roses are in the four inch by three inch range.

When more have been completed, I shall create a sales gallery. These minis shall be offered up for sale matted and unframed so shipping shall be nice and easy. I will of course post about that development when it happens.

For now I am hoping to get some good photo references on those apples I mentioned in a previous post (need a sunny day for good shadows) and in the meantime, I have started a new peony petals piece - another one for the series!

coloured pencil rose finished, updates

Rose Center # 2, 18.5" x 8", Coloured Pencil on Stonehenge

Copyright Teresa Mallen

Here is the finished rose, number two in my series of rose center close ups. Due to its foot and a half width it looks quite dramatic when I look at it from a distance. I have it taped to my studio wall so I can see if there are areas I wish to tweak. Whew, number two is done and you know what? For a gal who doesn't like to work in a series, I think I even have a third rose in me. Wouldn't that be something?! My apologies to those of you who are following my blog who do not like floral art. I do other subjects as well. Please hang in there.

Okay, updates: well woo-hoo, I nearly fell off my chair this morning when I checked the status of my Chard's journey. I had had no new info since 3:30 a.m. Friday morning when it had left Syracuse and to be honest I wasn't too hopeful that all was well. Yippee, it has made it to the state of Georgia. Not only that, the scan says that as of 11:00 this morning it was in Doraville. I did a google map check and good ol' Doraville looks like it is about a half hours drive from the gallery! Can you believe it? Surely in the next 48 hours my funky chunk of chard can be transported just a few more miles. Surely...If it doesn't get delivered by Wednesday morning, I shall hire a taxi driver to go pick it up. So close I can taste it...

As for the adorable Miss Bambie, well if the big furry marmot didn't chew some flowers last night! Grrrrr....Not just ordinary lilies but the exotic ones....more grrrrr....I hope they gave her indigestion. We have a motion detector sprayer and while it can't cover the whole garden, I will make sure it is on tonight and in the area of the lilies. No doubt she will just enjoy the shower! :-)

New update: My tracking info is now showing a 3:04 Destination Scan! Destination, as in the gallery?!! Somebody pinch me or fetch some water, I think I have gone into shock. Time for a happy dance!!! Can you dance and be in shock at the same time? Let's see...Woo-hoo, woo-hoo, woo-hoo...

new coloured pencil rose

center of a rose, wip, coloured pencil on Stonehenge, 18" x 8"

copyright Teresa Mallen

Here is my newest work in progress. You might notice the similarity in size, subject matter and style to my last piece. Woo-hoo, looks like a series is in the making! Usually I am not keen to work on a subject that is so similar to something that I have just finished. As a result, I usually don't work in a series. Of course all artists know that it is a good idea to work in a series (at least once in a while) but I must confess that I am a bit too hedonistic to stick to this good advice. Ah, but perhaps this time...I would just need to complete one more and I would have a small series!

Like the last piece, I am working on a rose - cps on Stonehenge paper. Again, this piece is all about curves and delicately blended colour. As you can see, I have yet to add colour to some petals while other areas have been quite developed. I hop all over as I work, adding a bit of colour here and there. At 18 inches wide, the piece has some lovely drama to it already.

My flower gardens are flourishing. Peonies, poppies and lupines are all displaying their beauty. Here is a lovely lisianthus...

and an allium...


I think it is time to brew up some tea and to sit amongst the flowers for a spell. I want to rewrite some of my press material and sitting in the garden will help make this a more enjoyable task!

So how about you, do you like working in a series?

Abstracted Rose Finished

Rose (untitled), 8"w x 15"h, Coloured Pencil on Stonehenge

Copyright Teresa Mallen

Here is the finished image of the work in progress I showed last time. You might recall that I was going for abstracted realism here. While the piece is a representation of an inner section of a rose, my desire was to capture and emphasize the various lines and curves that I found so appealing. You can click on the detailed view below for a better idea of how the piece looks close up.

I haven't given any thought as to what the title of this piece might be. I will tape it to the wall of my studio and perhaps something will come to mind as I look at it over the next little while.

It has been two weeks since I posted. Please don't infer that this piece took that long to do! In fact this piece came together quickly as there wasn't a lot of detail to render. Unfortunately I just haven't been able to spend much time in my studio recently. As some of you may know, my father passed away last year. My mother died six years ago. My sister and I have inherited the family farm and we are now in the process of going through the house and all of their belongings. For those of you who have already had to face a similar situation, you know what a huge task this can be. It is at least a three hour drive to get to the farm and back so these sessions are time consuming and tiring.

My parents moved a few times but eventually they bought a farm in 1957 and they lived there the rest of their lives - long enough to settle in well and accumulate stuff. So we sort, throw out, clean, sort some more, throw out, clean...on and on it goes. I have done at least 20 loads of laundry in the past week as I prepare their clothing to go to a charity. Once we are done the house, we can look forward to sorting the outbuildings. Old farm machinery, yippee. Right about now I could use a few extra siblings. :-) Then again, I have heard a lot of horror stories of how family members fight over their parents' estate so maybe things would just be more complicated.

It has been an interesting time wandering down memory lane. Many items bring back memories of the childhood that I spent there. Holding a crystal pickle tray transports me back to Christmas dinners with Mom's homemade relishes and bread and butter pickles. Long forgotten and tucked at the back of my old bedroom closet I discovered my buffalo sandals from the '70s. The stuff we choose not to throw out, it is so interesting. Costume jewelry that belonged to my grandmother - my mother couldn't part with it and now neither can we! This is a time of memories, laughter and tears.

The unexpected fallout of this is that as we sort the farmhouse my home suddenly becomes stuffed with items that I am bringing back. Yikes...Oh, but there are some groovy finds. Last week we accessed a couple of storage rooms over the kitchen. You can only get up there via a ladder and we hadn't done this in many, many years. Well woo-hoo, I was still climbing the ladder when I spied some lovely chairs. One really gorgeous looking one (lovely lines to its construction) and a few others. They were buried under other things so I don't know if my woo-hoo will turn to an uh-oh. Perhaps they are broken or something. I do know that there is pigeon poop on everything so some serious cleaning will be required. My sister has dibs on the 1900 Singer treadle sewing machine. So now you know what I am up to if my blog posts get rather infrequent!

So what is up next in the studio? Well, this week I have to work on getting the Chard piece ready to ship to Atlanta. Tonight I am going to haul out all of my mat board to see if I have a large enough sheet in the right shade of off white. I had mentioned in the last post that I might do a few of these rose pieces. To get started I will look for another reference image from my photos. Right now though, I am going catch up on reading some of my favourite blogs.

Abstracted Realism - new cp wip

'rose flame', work in progress, 15" x 8", coloured pencil on Stonehenge

copyright Teresa Mallen

Isn't it wonderful to start a new piece? I thought I needed a break from working big but I missed a larger format so this one is 15 inches by 8 inches - lots of room to stretch out and breathe! So what am I doing with this and what do I mean by abstracted realism? Well, have a look at my rose photo below.

Using Photoshop, I played with some reference photos. I ended up with a composition that I really liked. I chose a close up view, a vertical slice of the center of the rose. This piece is all about shapes and curves. I saw curves that reminded me of a candle flame or smoke rising. That is the story I wish to tell with this new work. The piece is grounded in realism as I am drawing an actual rose but it is also undergoing a bit of abstraction as the cropping focuses on shapes and curves. I love the shapes and curves of the crop and it doesn't really matter to me if the source is a rose or a tree branch or whatever.

I have lots of yummy colour down already but for now the photo isn't showing it well. I am working on white Stonehenge and I am building up colour by applying light layers of pigment. I saw a few other compositions that appealed to me so I think there may be a rose series in the work here...maybe...

For those of you who are wondering if there is going to be a May issue of my newsletter...humm, I am quite busy right now with commitments outside of the studio so it may be a while before I can get writing another issue. For those of you who are subscribers, you will of course be notified as soon as a new issue has been published. The silver lining is that for those of you who are new members, you have more time to catch up with your reading of past newsletters. If you are new to my blog and you don't have a clue what I am talking about, hop on over to my website to read my newsletters for coloured pencil enthusiasts.

Finally, for the birders out there, not only did I hear a whip-poor-will this week, (as mentioned in a previous post) I actually saw a mother and her oh so adorable baby (half way between fluff and feathers). I was walking my dog one evening and we happened upon them resting in the grass. Mom flew off. I so wish I had my camera so I could have taken a picture of the baby. The site was close to the house and I could have returned to the spot but I didn't want to disturb them more than we had. Don't worry, I kept my dog from having a curious sniff. :-)