672 Tiny Paintings
Sushi Leftovers Acrylic on canvas, 18 x 18 inches, 2016 by Sarah Atlee. $910 For purchase inquiries, contact Cerulean Gallery at 214.564.1199 or caroline@theceruleangallery.com. UPDATE: SOLD
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How did I complete 672 tiny paintings?
One at a time.
I'm loving the grid these days. We're old friends. It's a beautiful device, bringing order out of chaos, or merely giving chaos something to lean against.
I often use a grid for making a preliminary pencil drawing on a canvas. It saves me a lot of time, and it's easy to cover up with subsequent layers of paint. The fun starts when I decide to let some or all of the grid be part of the final image.
In the case of Sushi Leftovers, I created a much smaller grid than normal. This is an 18" x 18" canvas broken down into three-quarter-inch squares. 24 squares times 24 is 576. But wait, where are the other 96 tiny paintings? Answer: I always paint my edges. That's four more groups of 24 for a grand total of 672.
I thought based on my experience that breaking one complicated image down into a bunch of smaller, simpler ones might make things easier. Not in this case! But this series is all about the play between digital imagery and traditional painting. So the squares became pixels. Some of the pixels are functioning normally. Others are ...broken.
Enjoy!
Sushi Leftovers will be part of the On Edge exhibition at Cerulean Gallery, 16 September - 28 October 2016.
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Detritus, aka Making the Art Sausage
Note: This entry first appeared on my Patreon page, which is no longer active.
When we see a work of art hanging on a wall or seated on a pedestal, it looks like it appeared there by magic. You might get a hint of the work that went into its creation - brush strokes, fingerprints, chisel marks, and so on. But what don't you see?
The process of making a painting bleeds over into my surrounding workspace. There are a lot of leftover bits. Why let them go to waste?
Paint on the Palette
I'm using a glass palette these days for my acrylic paints. It's easier to clean than plastic, but there's an awkward side effect. When my acrylic paint begins to dry on the palette, it forms flakes that absolutely do not mix with wet paint. Grr.
My solution is to take a paper towel, fold it in quarters longways, saturate it with water, and squeeze out my paint onto that. I still use the glass for mixing color, and clean the mixtures off when I'm done.
If I unfold the paper towel carefully, the next day I have this cool object that's just begging to be collaged somewhere.
All the Trimmings
I've been using my extra paint to make postcards. They are standard-size and ready to be stamped and mailed. Or you can just set them on a shelf and enjoy.
I make these by cutting 9 x 12 Bristol board into quarters. However, there's a half-inch that needs to be trimmed in order to meet the USPS' standard postcard dimensions. I've been making a lot of postcards, and these strips are really accumulating. What will they become?
Trading Cards
Are you familiar with Artist Trading Cards? They're made where are collecting and business cards intersect. They're tiny - 2.5 x 3.5 inches - and that's where the standardization ends. I use ATC's as a great place to use up extra paint, switch gears, relax with a small piece, and then have something cool to give away or swap.* Will my Patreon patrons be getting Artist Trading Cards at some point? [Yes they did.]
* You can buy ATCs on eBay. But I prefer them to be gifted or traded hand-to-hand.
Making Hay
Let us make hay while the sun shines.- Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha
So I had a pile of reds, golds, and browns, culled from the donated fabric bin at the meeting of Community First! Quilters. The fields are ripe, they said - it's harvest time.
The front and back are both improvised strip-piecing. The emerging pattern reminded me of aerial photographs of farmland.
See the burgundy? It was in my fabric stash for ages. It was just waiting for that exquisite harvest-gold botanical print to pair with.
Like, hey, what's up cheese? I'm that wine you've been thirsting after.
This spring-green patch was left over from a previous quilt.
Making Hay was my first ever longarm quilting experience. Many thanks to Jessica and Ellie at The Cotton Cupboard for their patient teaching!
What is Modern Quilting? Learn more about Mobile Loaves & Fishes What is the Community First! Village? Contribute your quilting skills to the Community First! Quilters
Going on an Egg Hunt
Egg Hunt (working title), acrylic on canvas mounted on wood panel, 10 x 8 inches, 2015 by Sarah Atlee.
Continuing with the spring-is-springing theme, here's another new abstract piece. I'm noticing that my patchwork impulse is just plain taking over.
Avocado and Shades of Firefly
Avocado: Shades of Firefly. Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24 inches by Sarah Atlee.
You already know about my love for Persea americana. Here is another tribute to this fascinating fruit.
Shades of what now?
When I say "Firefly," I'm not talking about this.
Not now, Mal. I'm working.
Nor am I referring to one of these lovelies:
Photo by Terry Priest. Click image to view source.
I mean this Firefly.
Firefly, from the first generation of My Little Pony toys. Source unknown.
Sometimes, when I put the right pink and the right blue next to eachother, I get a nostalgic flashback to the mid-eighties. I didn't collect all the My Little Pony dolls, and lord knows what happened to them. But I do remember this one. I think so, anyway - I feel like the one I had was a lighter shade of pink with a darker shade of blue...
Color can be funny that way.
See Avocado: Shades of Firefly in Person
Avocado: Shades of Firefly was shown in February 2015 at Ro2 Art in Dallas.