Three tiny paintings

Just for the record: these take as long as paintings twice the size, largely because all the same challenges are present and needing to be addressed, but in a smaller environment.  You can't actually dash off a tiny painting faster than a giant one.  

When I used to create miniature needlework, one twelfth scale, selling to serious adult collectors, people used to comment, oh well, that little six by eight inches rug won't take more than a couple of hours, no?  how come so expensive?  and I'd explain that it took exactly as long as a six by eight foot rug, because everything was scaled down, tiny mesh, tiny needles, fine thread.  Quite a revelation to people who had never experienced miniature work.

I'm a pretty rapid worker, but a square inch of even a simple design took upward of an hour and a more complex one about two hours.  Particularly since I was designing on blank canvas with just the aid of my plan to the side or a little drawing. And then you couldn't stitch for longer than that, because of the strain on your entire body from the focus on the work.  It was lovely, though, and very meditative.

But paintings are, to get back to our sheep, or nos moutons, very similar in demand.  And then when you make small ones, you suddenly get all these fancy ideas about experimenting...

Hence the scratching on the spiderweb piece, using a boxcutter blade

and the gold touches, probably hard to see in photographs on the others

Crown of Thorns plant, sporting a new crop of flowers
and the scratching on the Boston fern, to show light piercing through it out of doors.  

These are about postcard size, as usual I didn't measure. But I have a ways to go before I get pleased with my painting.  Drawing comes much more naturally to me.  This is because I'm interested in shapes and relationships much more than color, and painting uses color to express shapes and relationships rather than using line.  So I need to remember how to do this!

And how to crop using my tablet.  Sometimes I do better than others. I'm using somewhat low end tools, which I guess fit my low end budget and inclinations.