“Dots 14″ little bitty painting

The latest in my ongoing series of small “little bitty” original paintings, each only 5 x 7 inches (or 12.7 x 17.8 cm if you’re into that kind of thing). Each is unique, all are experimental.

This one’s kind of like a maze:

By the way, there’s no right way up for this painting (or any of the others, for that matter). You can display it any way up you like.

“Dots 14″ by Barbara J Carter

5×7″ (12.7 x 17.8 cm) Acrylic on canvasboard

$45 plus postage ($1.50 in the US, $3 everywhere else) and sales tax in California.

No PayPal account needed, just a credit card.

“Dots 13″ little-bitty painting

The latest in my series of “little-bitty” dot paintings:

“Dots 13″ by Barbara J Carter

Acrylic on canvasboard, 5×7″ (12.7 x 17.8 cm)

$45 plus postage ($1.50 in the US, $3.00 outside the US) and sales tax in California

No PayPal account needed, just a credit card.

New little-bitty painting “Dots 12 (Open Grid)”

“Dots 12 (Open Grid)” is the latest in a series of what I call “little bitty” paintings. They’re all 5×7 inches (that’s 12.7 x 17.8 cm if you’re metrically inclined), which is super small compared with my “usual” paintings.

These little bitty paintings are more experimental than my big serious paintings. They are studies, explorations of possibilities. They allow me to break free of any preconceptions I might have (oh yes, I have a few!) about how to make a painting.

“Dots 12″

For this one, I originally planned out an elaborate grid of dots that would be completely filled in. But while painting it, I started leaving gaps here and there. I thought I’d fill in the gaps with different colors. But partway through I realized I liked the effect of the gaps, so I left them. The grid is there, but it’s hinted at rather than explicitly filled in. I like that.

Like the others, this one’s for sale. I can send it anywhere in the world the mail service reaches. So far, other little bitty paintings have been sent as far as Poland, Sweden, and even Oregon.

“Dots 12 (Open Grid)” by Barbara J Carter

5×7 inches (12.7 x 17.8 cm)

Acrylic on canvasboard

$45 plus postage ($1.50 in US, $3.00 elsewhere) and sales tax in California

No PayPal account needed, just a credit card.

More “little bitty” dot paintings

Here are my two latest “little bitty” dot paintings, just finished this week.

These things have been flying off the shelves, so to speak. I figured I’d better get cracking and make some more!

“Dots 10 (Wavy Lines)”

5×7 inches (12.7 x 17.8 cm)

Acrylic on canvasboard

$45 (plus $1.50 shipping in the US or $3.00 shipping worldwide, and sales tax in California only)

Buy “Dots 10″ (no PayPal account needed, just a credit card)

“Dots 11 (Circles)”

5×7 inches (12.7 x 17.8 cm)

Acrylic on canvasboard

$45 (plus $1.50 shipping in the US or $3.00 shipping worldwide, sales tax in California only)

Buy “Dots 11″ (no PayPal account needed, just a credit card)

Candy-colored dot painting

Ta-daa! A brand new little-bitty dot painting in bright and yummy candy colors!

It is, like all my other “little bitty” paintings, 5×7 inches (12.7 x 17.8 cm). This one took a little longer to do than the others so I’m pricing it a wee bit higher, but it’s still a very affordable little original painting. Because as you know, I only sell original paintings. Even the very small ones.

“Dots 9 (Candy-Colored Dots)” by Barbara J Carter, acrylic on canvasboard, 5×7″ (12.7 x 17.8 cm), 2009.

Sold

New dot painting: “Blue-Green Square”

Painting rows upon rows of little dots, all lined up, in a subtly changing color palette, is a challenge. My arm, shoulders, and back all tend to cramp up after a couple of hours. On this 24-inch-square canvas, I don’t know exactly how long it took to paint all the dots (there are 7921 of them) but as a rough estimate I’d say about 40 or 50 hours.

“Blue-Green Square” by Barbara J Carter, acrylic on canvas, 24×24″ (61×61 cm). Available here.

This is the same size (and style) as my other 24×24 inch dot painting “Square, Red.”

Here’s a detail view showing the individual dots more clearly:

Detail, “Blue-Green Square”

Once again I was amazed (and frustrated) at how long this larger painting took. The smaller 10×10″ size went much faster, and the “little bitty” 5×7″ ones only take a few hours. The frustration comes not so much from how long it takes to complete one of these larger paintings, but rather from a growing realization that my goal of pushing into even larger sizes is perhaps overambitious. But fear not, I haven’t given up my dream of painting larger quite yet. I just need to work on my painting method and improve efficiency wherever possible.

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” -Robert Browning

“Yellow Square” painting

Yellow Square, acrylic on canvas, 10x10", 2009

This is another in my abstract dot series, which began with the “little bitty” dot paintings and includes the larger “Square, Red.” Like the others, it is a highly tactile painting, each dot being slightly raised and rounded. I am particularly intrigued by the optical “flare” effect along the diagonals. It’s an optical illusion, but it is particularly striking in this painting.

It is elegantly framed as shown below:

“Yellow Square”, acrylic on canvas, 10×10″ (frame 11.5 x 11.5″) is available for $400 plus shipping. Sales tax in California only. It comes framed and wired to hang.

No PayPal account needed, just a credit card.

New dot painting: “Square, Red”

The time has come. It’s time to scale up from my little bitty 5×7″ dot paintings to something bigger. 24 inches square, in fact. Here’s the first one.

"Square, Red" by Barbara J Carter, 24x24", acrylic on canvas, 2009

There are 7832 little pencil-sized dots covering the entire surface in a grid, forming concentric squares of varying colors ranging from white at the center to a very dark almost-black color at the edge. Behind the dots lurks an organic multi-hued pattern resembling camouflage.

"Square, Red" detail, Barbara J Carter

It took longer than I expected to apply all the dots. I could only paint for a couple hours at a time before my back and shoulder began seizing up, and my hands would start shaking. Shaky hands are no good for precision work! But once begun I really wanted to finish it up, so I would take a short break then get right back to it. I work like that a lot. I call it “sprinting.” It took about 2 weeks of highly concentrated effort to complete this painting.

This is my first foray into scaling up my smaller experimental works, but certainly not the last. It is the beginning of a whole new series of paintings for me, a series that I’ve been contemplating for several years now. Although the formal elements of the paintings are purely abstract, there are some very concrete ideas behind these works. I will talk more about the conceptual underpinnings later. (You can always email me or send me a tweet if you’d like to talk artspeak with me.)

Oh yeah, there’s also a story behind the title. I’ll talk about that sometime too.

This painting is available for $1800, plus shipping (and sales tax in California). I deliver free in the Los Angeles area. I can ship anywhere in the world that FedEx Ground services. The painting is signed on the back, and wired to hang. Framing is unnecessary. The 1 3/8″ deep sides are painted black and all staples are neatly out of sight on the back.

Please contact me if interested, or click the “Buy Now” button to purchase.

No PayPal account needed, just a credit card.

New Paintings: “Dots 7″ and “Dots 8″

Further experimenting with the formal geometric ordering of the dots, I thought I’d try having two focal points rather than the single central focus of all the other little bitty dots paintings so far. I also tried mixing up the colors a little more. It’s all in the name of experimentation.

"Dots 7" by Barbara J Carter, 5x7", acrylic on canvas panel, 2009

“Dots 7″ is sold.

The result is at least interesting, and gives me more options for covering the larger areas of much bigger paintings. The dots will be the same size, so there will be a LOT more of them on a bigger painting. So blocking out multiple repeating patterns instead of a single overall pattern is a possibility. At any rate, “Dots 7″ helps me visualize how that might work in a larger painting.

Then, I decided to try something completely different, like making curving lines and areas out of the dots instead of the previous squares or random patterns. Again, all in the name of experimentation.

"Dots 8" by Barbara J Carter, 5x7", acrylic on canvas panel, 2009

“Dots 8″ is also sold.

“Dots 8″ kind of reminds me of the eye of an ancient Egyptian god, or perhaps some fishy sea creature. It was supposed to be just a random intersection of lines, but it’s very hard not to “see” objects in this kind of image. And that’s a useful lesson for me too. I probably won’t be using the “eye” motif in any future paintings, but it’s certainly different from the other experiments!

Going Geometric: “Dots 6″ painting

I’m really excited about this direction for my little abstract dot paintings:

"Dots 6" by Barbara J Carter, 5x7", acrylic on canvas panel, 2009

Geometry! The dots form one grid, the background stripes another. This is definitely a direction I’m interested in pursuing further. It dovetails nicely with the ideas I’ve been thinking about recently. So, you can expect to see more geometry!

This painting is available for $45 plus postage (and sales tax in California). First Class postage in the U.S. is $1.50. It is painted on a canvas panel, a thin board that will fit into a normal 5×7″ photo frame. Click on the “Buy Now” button to purchase with a credit card. No PayPal account needed.