 Welcome my artistic friends. This is artist Susan Jenkins, and I'm sharing with you today in Monet cafe the advantages of painting small There is something called artist trading cards that are little paintings two and a half by three and a half inches And I'm gonna share with you a little bit about what they are But the great thing is small paintings can really help you improve as an artist And I know that they help me a lot so I want to share a little bit in this video I'm gonna actually do a small artist trading card size painting and talk about the advantages of that But first I thought I'd show you a little bit about the history of artist trading cards and where they came from They are it's this is right here on Wikipedia and it started out with artist trading cards or ATC's is a conceptual art project Initiated by a Swiss artist. I'm not even gonna try that name artist trading cards are the what I said two and a half by three and a half inches and The same format as modern trading cards like baseball cards people are familiar with they are self-made unique works Or small series signed and dated on the reverse by the artist producer Exchange and collected by people who participate in this now. I wanted to explain a little bit down here in the bottom a little bit about the Commercialization of it because it changed names, okay The core purpose of the artist trading cards concept was a free exchange between the participants to establish rapport in order to allow for profit gain and Non-artist collection both the concept of a mutual exchange and the name of the cards were altered in 2004 a first ATC's offshoot was organized on ebay by Lisa Loree. I hope I'm saying that right right her name on ebay is Bone diva To circumvent the intellectual property rights. She called it art cards editions and originals Some of you may know it by then the acronym a ceo Personally, I like artist trading cards better. It's easier for me to remember But this is the official, you know, what they're called now is a ceo's art cards editions and originals So now we know a little bit about where they came from They're very neat people use them all the time to to trade and to market But I'm going to talk today about more of the advantages of just painting small in general If you want to get more involved in the a ceo paintings, that's awesome But I think painting small has lots of advantages So let's get started talking about that and actually doing a small a ceo today. Let's get started Here are the different pastels Colors and values that I've chosen to use for this and I know it's a little teeny painting And that really looks like a lot of colors for a small painting, but I've arranged them in order of The way the painting is these are going to be the more of the foreground those rich Darks, then we've got more of those golden grasses. There's even I see like some some greens I'm going to use kind of for that middle value there. This is a really dark dark It's actually dark green that I'm going to use for those background trees Now also if you've watched my videos, you know that I layer a lot of colors So they're not going to be only these colors These are just the general idea and then I'll layer and blend some This I see a really brilliant spot behind the trees there where the clouds are it's not It appears white, but if I used white, I know that value is going to be too light So I'm going to play around with that bright yellow I see some pinks kind of around the clouds the clouds also have some grays in them And then on up to the top upper atmosphere. It's where it's the darkest So I'm going to lay down this this dark. I might even need something darker than this I love this brilliant bold blue. The top is not super brilliant So I'm going to tone it down with this and I've got another blue here So these are just what I've chosen that I think will represent this image. Well, I Notice the variety of pastels. I've got a lot of Terry Ludwig's here The square they're the big chunky square ones. They're so soft and brilliant But I also have let me see what else I have here These I have some of the Sennelier pastels here. I even have some I believe that's a rim brand It's hard to see while I'm filming here, but I've got a little bit of everything here I usually let color be my guide rather than type or hardness of pastel Simply because I don't have an unlimited supply of colors in every brand so I usually choose color first and You know, then I just I hope and pray it's the right hardness and usually does you can You can really make these work for what you need unless you're getting to those final layers and you've got a lot of pastel down and Then the softies are the best at the very end. So but anyway, let's get this started and see what happens All right, what I have here is a piece of Sennelier. It's a French word Le Carte pastel card. It's called because it's thick. These are thick pieces And this pad comes in various colors and I really like this surface. It's a 360 grit and It's coarse and to my knowledge. I've never done it because I've heard you can't apply water to this Unlike you art paper and some of the other surfaces where you can do a watercolor underpainting or acrylic or whatever you want to apply underneath it, but To my knowledge, it's a no-no to apply water to this so I've never tried it But anyway, I love it because of its coarseness. It helps me to keep my work loose and Avoid getting too detailed and I really like that quality about it So it's and they also make the Sennelier pastels as well, which I love. They're awesome. So What I do though is I go ahead and pardon all my color here from my last painting But what I do is I go ahead and cut them up into the art trading artist trading card size Which is a three and a half by two and a half. These are neat little things I think that probably the history of this is something like artists started doing small paintings and trading them with each other And but what's neat is it's a great way to practice to get better and not to waste so much of your pastel paper and your pastels It's a real economical way to grow as an artist and they're fun. I kind of like working small So if I cut up a whole bunch of them, they're just ready I think these are actually a little bigger to leave a little border around it You know, maybe to tape around it or whatever you're going to do This one is actually a different surface This one is a you art paper that I did so it's just good Go ahead and cut them up so that you have them to use and practice practice practice. That's how we get better painting every day Which I'm hoping to be able to do when my life gets more settled is the best way to grow as an artist All right, let's get started