Painting in a Series

The first 6 of my buoy series (13 total so far) 6"x6" oil on canvas board

Painting in a series has a lot of benefits. A series is a body of work that goes together based on certain characteristics of the paintings. A series lets an artist explore a subject or theme and can provide a tool for the artist to hone their artistic voice. A series is also a great way to introduce your work to a gallery, it makes a bigger statement than a group of unrelated paintings. I've often used series for small works holiday shows, where they especially shine.

Mini landscapes 1, 2, 4, 7, 15, 16 - 4"x4" oil on treated paper

What makes a group of paintings a series? For me it's usually medium, subject, and size. In terms of subject, I've done series of floating buoys, top views of dinghies, and on a broader scale, a series of mini landscapes. I also frame all the paintings in a series with the same frame.

Dinghies 4-9 - 5"x7" oil on panel

I've learned a few things in the process. Most importantly, don't try to batch process creating the pieces, at least not at first. I leaned this with the dinghies. If you're going to create a series, do at least two pieces start to finish before you begin the rest. There may be something about your design or process that needs tweaking and you'll only figure that out by actually finishing a couple of pieces. I ended up changing some of the colors of the dinghy paintings, and adding the shadows on the water. If I'd though of that earlier, I might have not centered the boats on the canvas.

Dinghy 4 Three Ways

The life of Dinghy 4 is an example of some of the changes that I made as I went along. First, I'd used the green background on several of the boats, but it didn't read as water. Second the orange interior just didn't look right. That's a bit weird since it is a popular color for the insides of classic wooden skiffs. Maybe the green seats were the problem.

One of the interesting experiences I've had with these three series is their popularity. I'm not sure if it's the subject matter, that there's a choice of colors, the fact that these aren't very large and neither is the price tag, or it's something else. The dinghies and landscape series all sold out. Only 2 of the buoys have not been sold.

If you'd like to see all of the paintings in the three series go HERE.