“The Red Barn and Green Tractor” 3″ x 3″ Oil on canvas – $18

Painting on a small canvas can be a lot of fun!  I have a collection of miniature canvases that I’ve started exploring doing some landscape paintings on. These small canvases are 3″ x 3″ square.  Square canvases aren not a format I tend to work with so it’s been an adventure mapping out compositions. 

For this painting I worked from a photograph I took at a near by cattle farm a couple of summers ago.  It was by invitation that I ended up there to plein air paint.  Although I loved the barn – I ended up taking pictures of it and painting other parts of the landscape.  In returning to that collection of images I recalled the beauty and shape of the barn as well as the old tractors near by. 

What was fun about creating this small oil painting was finding a way to incorporate enough detail without over doing it.  The brushstrokes really heightened the expression.  In the small space a single stroke can go a long way. 

I’m not sure where this experience will lead but I am going to continue to paint on the canvases I have available and come up with a small collection of miniatures.   What has crossed my mind is to re-interpret one of these at a larger scale.  Time will tell how that unfolds. In the mean time I hope you enjoy the gift of color that is coming in this small package.