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!