FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How many mints do you eat? Do you eat all the Altoids before you paint in each container?
I like mints, but I almost never eat them. Almost all of the containers I use are recycled from other people. Most of the Altoids tins are from bulk eBay purchases, and other containers were donations. I would guess that out of all the paintings I have made in Altoids containers, maybe 4 or 5 of the containers were actually from myself.
Do you use the same container each time and clean it out, or do you use a new container every time? And what do you do with the leftover paint?
I use a new container every time, and when I am finished, the painting stays with the container it was painted in, complete with the palette of paint that was used to create it. It then is basically like a little art artifact. The leftover paint stays in the container, and I just let it dry. I don’t consider it to be wasting the “unused” paint that is left in the container after the painting is complete, because that too is, in a way, part of the art piece.
What size and brand of brushes do you use?
I use a lot of the Velvetouch series brushes by Princeton. I also have some brushes by Silver Brushes. My finest detail brushes are the 8400 series 2/0 kolinsky sable brushes by Raphael. Some of the larger brushes I use are 1/2” to 1/4”, and the smallest I use are 1/32” or smaller, and have a tip as fine as a needle point, as with the aforementioned brush by Raphael. Also, I sharpen my pencil to the sharpness of a needlepoint to sign my name.
Do you use acrylic or oil? What brand?
Many different brands of oil. I am not exclusive to any one brand.
What substrate do you paint on?
Wood panel, primed white. I velcro a wood panel into the lid of each mint container before I paint, and I usually set up a few containers at a time in advance of painting.
How did you get into doing these little paintings?
I saw other people doing them and thought it looked like fun, so I decided to try it for myself. I had begun plein air painting at the end of 2016, and after a few months I was doing smaller and smaller paintings, because I’ve always enjoyed working in a small format. I had even done a series of small 2” x 3” paintings in canvas back in 2014. So in early 2017 when I saw other people doing paintings inside mint containers, I thought it looked like a fun, portable way to paint, and it seemed like a natural next step which I ended up making in mid to late 2017. It has made plein air painting very accessible, and has opened the door to the possibility of being a prolific artist.
Do you have really good vision?
My vision is 20/15 – when I am wearing my contacts or my glasses! Without corrective lenses I don’t have the best vision, as I’m nearsighted with -2.5 in my right eye, -3.25 in my left eye.
How long does it take you to paint a tiny painting inside an Altoids tin?
They typically take an average of 1-3 hours, but some have taken as little as 30 minutes and others as much as 6 hours!For the most part, I rarely keep track of exactly how long I paint for. One fairly easy and frictionless method I have sometimes used to keep track of my work time: I take a picture right before I begin painting the scene which I am about to paint, and then right when I am finished painting I always take a picture of my painting anyway. Later, I can look at the time stamp of each picture and – voila! I know approximately how long I was working on that piece.The amount of time it takes to paint a piece is always different, because each scene is different. Some scenes have more detail than others. Sometimes I take a different approach to the painting which is quicker and saves time, and other times I want to be very careful about the way I paint and that takes longer. Sometimes I want the painting to be looser, and sometimes I want it really refined and highly detailed. How much sleep I got and/or how much energy or motivation I have are other factors which dictate how much time a painting will take to produce. Another factor which is not always considered is how long it can take to find the right spot to paint in the first place. The level of experience is yet another factor. There are still many more factors which contribute to “how long does it take”, which could probably fill a small book. To take it a step further, painting, like any art practice, is like a living, breathing organism that takes lots of time to nurture and develop. Often many years, if not decades are needed. Some artists think the amount of time it takes to paint a painting very well could include all of those many years of experience, of experimentation through trial and error, as well as, on some level, the undefinable amount of time ruminating about the said artwork.
How do you choose the spot where to create your mini paintings?
Every spot I choose is different in some way, and it is dictated by different things each time. Sometimes I choose a spot based on how much time I have, and so I pick a spot near my house which I already have in mind. Other times it is dictated by my mood, and other times it is dictated by a preconceived idea of some goal I have in mind, like the desire to paint something indicating the current season or a peculiar weather event.
What advice would you give to someone starting out drawing miniature artwork?
There are so many skills that can be included in the process of painting, and they all transfer to painting small. To produce a small painting, it is exactly the same as painting something large, just on a smaller scale. Painting small requires detail, and it helps to have a background in photo-realism painting. Then, each miniature painting can be likened to a small section of a larger photo-realism painting. One thing that maybe makes painting in miniature different is that it is important to make the work readable to the eye. Don’t try to include too many distracting elements in the composition. This is a relatively tricky concept to get right, and I’m also not perfect at sticking to this idea.
What inspires your work?
Philosophically speaking, actually the biggest inspiration for my work is nature itself. I consider every single painting I produce to be a study of the creational-natural laws which govern all of nature, which I learn partly through my own experience, and partly from a very special acquaintance and teacher of mine, my absolute most favorite Swiss author ‘Billy’ Eduard Albert Meier. Meier has written over 60 books dealing with the nature of reality, cause and effect, meditation, etc., and so while I am painting, I am often in deep contemplation of something that he has written. The takeaway for me is that the act of painting becomes a deep meditative study of the natural world and the nature of reality, and thus each painting is essentially a visual artifact of meditation. Also, the work of Claude Monet and other plein air painters provides me with motivation to keep producing work, and I am always striving to become a better painter.
