 Welcome to Monet Café. I'm artist Susan Jenkins and this month in Monet Café artists have been enjoying the benefits of tiny painting. I'm calling this when less is more and there are truly so many benefits to painting small. So come on in the studio and let's paint some lovely tiny geraniums. Oh and by the way this is all real time. I'd also really appreciate it if you would take a moment right now to like, subscribe and hit that little bell icon to be notified of future videos. And I'm able to keep these free lessons coming because of the support from my patrons on my Patreon page. If you would like to consider becoming a patron it's only $5 a month and you get extra goodies and extra content. And now let's dive right into more tiny painting. I am so blessed to live near the most awesome and beautiful produce market. I live kind of out in the country and pardon the vertical footage here. I film a lot for my Instagram page and it's best to do vertical footage. But anyway they have jams and jellies and local honey and just all kinds of wonderful plants and produce. And they happen to have some absolutely beautiful geraniums blooming and I thought man this would be a great subject matter for some future paintings and yes a tiny painting. This is the reference image I'll be using and if you're a patron of mine on my Patreon page you will get a copy of this image in the post. And now let's talk a little bit about the supplies. I'll be using what's called artist trading card size and that size is two and a half inches by three and a half inches and I love using these clear bags to put my little original paintings in. It keeps them very safe. You can ship them as long as you protect them with some foam core board and these make great gifts. Unfortunately this little pre-cut card you see here by Color Fix isn't available anymore but you can cut your own. All you need to do is cut something that's two and a half inches by three and a half inches and now I'm going to put my little card on the board and some of you have asked how I do this and it's really a simple method. I get a piece of artist tape and yes this is a nice sanded surface. Pastel paintings we love sanded surfaces even though you don't have to have sanded surfaces to work with pastel but I take a piece of artist tape, I put it on the back and this is really easy because it's so small and I leave a little bit sticking out of the top. And here I'm going to show my limb tape dispenser. This is so handy for me because I used artist tape all the time. I use three quarter inch artist tape I get from Dick Blick and my limb tape dispenser I got from Amazon. I do have it in my Amazon shop. I'll try to remember to put a link to that. I always have my shop in the description of each video but I'll try to put a link to the dispenser. It keeps me hands-free. Now all I do is take another piece of artist tape and stick it you know halfway onto the tape and halfway onto the board. So it's a super simple method to where you can paint to the edges of a painting if you want. You don't have to you know go around the perimeter of your painting with tape. But first I'd like to discuss this reference image and what I'm going to do to paint it small. I've printed out my reference image a lot larger than my painting is going to be just for a teaching opportunity and to share with you what I think is a great benefit of tiny painting. Now typically when we're painting large we're looking at all this detail. We're looking at all these little leaves on the ground and all of this. And when you're painting on such a tiny surface there's no way you can fit all that detail in there. You know your big old chunky pastels won't do that. So you end up achieving the goal that I hear from a lot of you. You want to get more painterly a more impressionistic style and that's what small painting does. It forces you to stay loose. You cannot get in all of those details. So that's definitely one of the benefits. But I'm going to show you to kind of how I'm going to simplify this for the tiny painting. All right so I can see here this is like some other pots in the background back here. Guess what? I don't care that those are pots. It doesn't matter. I really like the color, the color contrast going on with these pink flowers. So I think for the background of this instead of worrying about it being a pot I think I'm just going to kind of and I'll lose this little thing here kind of get some nice color in in the background of these. There's also a nice kind of blue-green going on there. So rather than which will kind of tie in with some of the blue-greens in here. So rather than over analyzing things we're going to simplify it because we're painting small. There's no way we can get all that detail in. Let me get a nice blue-green. All right yeah it's kind of like something like this which might look a little bit like the sky. You know we can we can pull out our artistic license and just imagine things being different. So I'm gonna really subdue the background a lot. The first things I already know I'm gonna do and I'm going to do the same thing on the ground. Now what would you say and and this is my strategy here is to make certain things stand out more than others and that's what's called focal point and we definitely want our focal point to be these flowers and these leaves in the pot. Okay but I'm gonna even simplify or fine-tune it even more than that. I really want the focal point to pull the viewer in look at color and beauty and maybe bring their eye up here. I'm probably gonna pull my pot down a little bit so that my flower is not so close to the edge up there. All right so I'm going to subdue other areas giving little bits of detail where I want my focal point energy to be and here I'm just sort of blocking in some darker shapes and simplifying things a bit. Most of the rest of it is just going to be choosing a few things that you want to be your focal point. Like I said it's obviously going to be these flowers here and I want to try to keep the gesture of them. Often creating flowers and leaves that are a little bit more geometric is kind of interesting rather than you know all real curvy lines but I like I like the way we've got a little flow going. I love the position of the flowers. I also like kind of how certain leaves could kind of pull like in an S-shaped curve here. So I will probably enhance the contrast and there's always so much I can do with a little painting. Maybe a little bit of the contrast here. This is a darker leaf because it's underneath shadow and a few leaves I'm going to give a little bit more attention than others and the rest can be a little bit more subdued. I usually try to keep things subdued when they're close to the edges. Now I'm going to keep this here just as a reference but I'm going to share with you another tip why painting small is a good idea and it's because when we take an image like this and we shrink it down to a thumbnail. Now see it's big now. I got all kinds of pictures here. I prefer to paint from something often as a thumbnail because you're not allowed to or you can't see all the detail. It doesn't allow you I should say to see all of the detail. So it really helps to even look at the image small while you're painting. But I'm going to use this one as a reference and I'm going to look at this one also while I paint as well. And here I'm just using a white charcoal pencil to get in the sketch which is super super simple. Now this is the only part of this video that will be sped up and also my reference image was wider than my painting surface so I do kind of accommodate for that to shrink things in. I had to bring the flowers in a little closer to each other and this is super simple. We're just going to get in a pot a few of the flowers a general shape of some of the leaves kind of think big shapes with this. Don't think too much detail. We just want a little bit of a roadmap with our sketch and that's all we need. Now look at that big old chunky oh and my dirty hands Terry Ludwig pastel. I know many people probably think how on earth are you going to paint with big pastels like this on such a small surface. Well believe it or not that is point one in why small painting is huge in benefits. Well we recommend often like when you're painting with paint brushes I always say use the largest brush you can for the initial stages and that's because we want to block in. We want to focus on the big shapes and because you're painting small with large pastels you can't help but focus on the big shapes. I mean there you can't really get in too many details. So it's a really great way to simplify and get in the big shapes for blocking in. Now I'm just added the dark that I had at first was a Terry Ludwig. Oh I can't remember what this pastel is but it is a lighter a little bit lighter orange and I'm not going to get too fussy or carried away but I typically work dark to light you can layer with pastels so I loved this pretty kind of a purple magenta color and I believe I think this might be a Sennelier pastel I'm not sure and I know if you're brand new first getting started you don't have a lot of pastels to work with trust me I feel your pain I was there with you is taking me years to accumulate lots of pastels but here now I'm adding this is definitely a Sennelier pastel I am adding a bright pink now notice how the colors start to kind of vibrate and all I'm doing I can't focus on individual you know how Geranium has all kinds of little flowers that make up one big flower they look like little bouquets I can't focus on all of that all I can do is kind of scumble in some of the colors and the shapes and that is a key to the painterly look I have artists often asking how do you get an impressionistic style or a painterly style and often it's by these little techniques of just layering color suggesting things rather than getting too overly detailed and that would be point number two it lends towards a painterly feel now I'm adding a little bit it had a little bit of a warmth to it in some areas where the Sun was hitting it so this is a little bit of a warmer pink or a cool red you could call it I know some if you're brand new you may not understand the color temperature I do have a I think is a really good video on color temperature and it's it's to me I'm fascinated with color now here's back to the point number one which we have to block in big shapes I didn't want to get too fussy with color right now I just wanted to get in some value I want to get in kind of like a middle value here I love this kind of cool sagey blue green and see how I'm just getting in the general mass of the leaves the shape of the whole area of the leaves rather than leaves individually I can't tell you how many times early on and I still do that's why I always come back to small painting because it helps me to remember to block things in but I can't tell you how many times I go in and I start painting the leaves all of the little leaves before I ever block anything in now I'm just reshaping the pot a little bit and now I'm still in the block in stage I've got me a nice neutral it's almost like a brown gray brown it's got a little coolness to it as well but I'm just blocking in the ground shape I know that I can come back and layer in other colors also a light touch you see how the paper still showing through well that's because I have a super light touch that has taken me years to figure out and to do and now I do it by habit but that is something that I recommend always keep a light touch and I know early as artist it bothers us kind of to see all of that texture showing through the paper but don't fret just embrace it let it be because eventually the pastels start to layer themselves now I know there is a little bit of a light area behind the geraniums you can see that the the ground is darker under the pot and then gradually as you go up to the middle part it starts to get a little bit lighter and and and then eventually the higher up you go it gets cooler there's a little coolness to the background so now I'm just kind of scumbling in the little shapes another benefit about tiny painting is you don't worry so much about the final result you don't freak out over it it's a little piece of paper you're not out that much if it doesn't work even though you can repurpose these papers so you kind of have a little bit more of a carefree relaxed attitude another point is it's less expensive of course you're using less product another benefit is this is great for busy lives can I get a hallelujah I mean most of us have very busy lives and you can feel like you accomplished something and it was relatively fast so I find that's a huge benefit plus it is absolutely true that daily painting is the key to becoming a better artist paint every day now I know sometimes that doesn't work but if you paint small like this your odds of painting every day are a lot better so that is a another great benefit and it's so satisfying you really feel like you accomplished something all right let me talk a little bit more about what I'm doing here I know that the leaves that are on the lower side they're a little bit in shadow they're gonna be cooler that's why I use kind of some of those teal cooler colors and now the leaves that are on top are catching the sunlight so I've gone warmer now I'm not going with my lightest value yet notice I'm still working dark to light or middle value to light not a nothing's really dark except for the part under the pot which is going to be lightened up by the way but now see how once again I'm going back to my other point which is I can't focus a whole lot on the detail of these leaves all I'm doing is looking at shapes I've scumbled in or I've blocked and I should say the big shape then I've honed it in a little bit with some of the cool leaves and now I'm getting some of the warmth and a little bit of those shapes now I knew there was some neat little blooms kind of coming out from the bottom of some of these you know how some of the blooms shoot up and they're still have those little pods so I just hinted at that now I'm going I think I I changed my mind a little bit on some of these colors no this one this one was good I'm just giving a few like on the little edges I love how geranium leaves are curly and it had some where the edges were curling up where there was a little bit more light in certain areas so I'm just suggesting that's the word you want to embrace with small painting really with big painting too there are with a larger painting of course you can get in more detail but you still just want to overall suggest things and have a very limited area of where your focal point is just popping in that color I thought was a little bit too like now here's where it's going to start getting some depth notice I didn't put in my darkest dark color because I at first when I blocked it in because I wanted to come back in and strategically sort of negatively paint into the shapes inside of the leaves and I think that's what creates the depth and makes it feel like there's three-dimensional of three-dimensional quality to the leaves and the plant in general now I wanted to add some that beautiful teal on top of the other blue that I had added and now I'm coming in with a little bit more of a little maybe a little more periwinkle blue and I'm just kind of negatively painting in between the flowers the spaces between that would be a good title for a video talking about negative painting the space between and so see how the colors eventually are starting to blend themselves and I actually like a little bit of the paper showing through but as you paint you don't have quite as much of that now I went with a little bit of a darker value as I'm negatively doing they call this when you do trees sky holes but why would if I have used a darker value in some of these little places in here well it's because when you get down would say the sky I made this kind of like a sky behind it when you get down into the plant and the sky is peeking through it's going to look very artificial if you use a very light value so I usually go just a hint darker with those negative spaces now I love adding a little bit of purple in the shadow I'm sort of carving out the pot a little bit more also to I don't freak out with getting my pot and some of my things just exactly right because I know that I can carve I can shape things as I go now this is a beautiful little neutral purple I love this color I believe this is a Sennelier pastel sometimes it's hard to tell because I've used these pastels a lot and they kind of get worn down a little bit but my strokes are going to just almost be forced to have a painterly feel because we are so forced on using bigger shapes and broader strokes now I'm peeking in some of the darker into the part of the pot that would be shadowy you can kind of see it in the reference image there's areas that are a little bit darker there is a little hint of light peeking through this cool little section I haven't gotten to that yet on the bottom left of the pot just above that one leaf that's poking down I add that highlight later and now I'm getting in a few more little darks just to indicate where those dark spaces are in the leaves and a great way to find those areas is to squint your eyes look at the reference image and just look at the shape of the dark elements and then you can sneak those in now that that I thought it was a little bit too light so I went back to something a little bit darker and just dabbed it in a little bit now I'm doing my suggesting again once again I cannot get all of these little bouquet flowers on one flower head so I just got me now my my lighter pink it's kind of like a almost a little coral colored pink and I'm just dotting in where some of the light would catch little those little individual flowers just a bit now I wanted to cool off a little bit behind there so I got a pretty neutral blue it's like a gray blue in that a pretty color and I'm just dabbing color here and there I like to connect my painting with color and because I had a little bit of blue in the sky I wanted to bring that down but not go quite as light now I'm using a little bit of that purple just to layer lightly lightly over the darker area now you see how that layering works now and it starts to basically fill up all those blank spaces of paper showing through now here's where I'm adding that lighter color well it was before I picked up this green and I'm going to use it again like I said for a little highlight now I put in a little stem these do have a few stems there's not a lot and I'm going in I want to zoom in here the pastels you see me using now our Prismacolor new pastels they are great for line work they're a little bit harder and because this painting is so small I was able to use these more effectively to get some of those little curly Q edges I think that's so emblematic of a geranium so just giving a few little suggestions of those curls in certain spaces is a lot of fun and makes it really look like a geranium a few other little pops of dark and I too wanted to bring a little bit of that terracotta color into the ground plus the ground was kind of a worm with a lot of leaves on it so you see how it's all kind of layering and having that really painterly impressionistic feel and now I'm almost done a few other little touches and it's only been you know less than 20 minutes the video right now is 20 minutes at this point but I talked a lot of the beginning of it also now peeking in a few of these pretty teal blues and notice how the shapes are kind of large and I really think that adds to just a few little elements of interest just some fun shapes in there like I was saying early on in this video one thing I love about painting small is it makes such neat little gifts I love giving my tiny paintings away and they're also fun to collect even your own I love putting them up on easels and seeing all my little tiny paintings all together they're just so darn cute by the way I have heard you guys in the comments many of you have been requesting more watercolor tutorials and yes I'm going to do the same geraniums larger in watercolor so that's going to be coming very soon and lots more watercolor too all right this is it for my little tiny painting and I have more on the way now if you're a patron of mine you guys have been doing amazing job with the tiny paintings you've totally embraced it believe it or not I have more on the way this is probably going to be the next tiny painting a little beach scene this is one I did an experiment with metallic watercolor and iridescent pastels and I also repurposed a piece of you are paper that was a painting I wasn't happy and I'm going to show you how you can repurpose it and do another little type of tiny painting that's a bit more abstract and just fun with color so I hope you enjoyed that if you're a patron of mine I can't wait to see what you do in our homework album we have lots of fun so if you'd like to support this channel and become a patron I would love that please subscribe and also follow me on Instagram I'm trying to build my Instagram following at Susan Jenkins artists all right artist be blessed and happy painting