Also, a relatively hard-sized paper works best. This technique requires a paper that can handle a lot of water, so student-grade or budget watercolor papers will rarely cut it. Because you'll be working very quickly wet-in-wet, you'll need supplies that can hold up under pressure. You don't need much to create these mini landscapes, but this is one project where a few, key ingredients can really make a difference. Also, working on another painting helps distract an impatient artist (like me) from going back into a painting too early and mucking it up. Instead, this helps lift performance pressure-if the paint doesn’t do what you want in one, simply move onto another. While waiting on one to dry, feel free to begin another. It's not a bad idea to paint two or three of these vignettes at the same time. Two to three foreground trees, a couple of fence posts, a few grasses or a scattering of snow are all the details needed to set the foreground scene, so don’t overdo it. After all, there's not of time and emotion invested in a 4圆-inch painting.Īny elements requiring details should be kept to a minimum.

This small size allows me to paint quickly and freely without worrying if I make a mistake. All of the examples that I show in this post are about the size of a postcard.

Think of these 10-minute landscapes as vignettes.

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