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

$30 (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

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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.

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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 $350 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 $900, 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 $30 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.

New Dot Paintings: “Dots 4” and “Dots 5”

Catching up with the little bitty dot paintings:

"Dots 4" by Barbara J Carter, 5x7", acrylic on canvas panel, 2009

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

I’m particularly pleased that some of the background detail shows up in “Dots 5”. It’s almost completely obscured in “Dots 4”, but you can just barely make it out if you look closely.

These little paintings are fun little works of art in their own right, but they’re also studies and experiments leading up to larger paintings. With these little bitty paintings I can work out what colors I like, how well the background details show up, things like that. So there will be more to come.

Each of these paintings is available for $45 plus postage (and sales tax in California).

Sorry, “Dots 4” and “Dots 5” are both sold. You can see my other little dot paintings here, or you can see all of my available art here.

New Painting: “Dots 3”

The next in an ongoing series of little bitty paintings:

"Dots 3" by Barbara J Carter, 5x7", acrylic on canvas panel, 2009

Being temporarily (I hope) camera-less, I instead captured the image of this little painting on my flatbed scanner. An artist friend had been after me to use my scanner more. He claims scanners take vastly superior pictures of paintings over digital cameras. The downside: anything bigger than the scanner (about 8×10″) has to be scanned in pieces, and I’m just not willing to do that. But for a little bitty 5×7″ painting the scanner works great! The colors are much more accurate than my camera ever got, I have to admit. So, maybe my friend has a point.

This painting is available for $30 plus postage ($1.50 in the U.S.), and sales tax if mailing to a California address. It’s painted on a canvas panel, a thin canvas-covered board that will fit readily into any 5×7″ photo frame. To purchase, click on the button below.

Another Art Bag

I’m really pleased with how this one turned out.

"Flocculent Galaxy" acrylic paint on plastic shopping bag by Barbara J Carter

If it looks vaguely astronomical to you, that’s great! I meant for the 4 bags to depict four different kinds of galaxies, in an artistically-inspired kind of way. The first one I finished is a lenticular or “fried-egg” galaxy, and the second is a ring galaxy.

This one, the third bag I’ve painted, is a special kind of spiral galaxy that astronomers call a “flocculent” galaxy. That means that you see a spiral shape to the stars and gases, but no distinct “arms”, just a general overall spiral-ness. This kind of galaxy can be astonishingly beautiful. I’ve always loved how they look.

However, when I first learned the word “flocculent” in grad school, it sent me into a fit of giggles. It sounded rude, dirty, like “flatulent” or “fornicate”. My professor, and all the other students in the class, simply stared at me like I’d grown a second head. Obviously I was the only one struck by the word’s hilarity.

And you know what? I never got over it. To this day I can’t say “flocculent” with a straight face. Just can’t help it. But I still think the galaxies are beautiful.