A New Miniature Painting Every Month

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Series Nine: Chasing Color

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Monthly Miniature, Chasing Color

Chasing Color is part of my ongoing Monthly Miniatures series, exploring how color shapes mood and meaning in still life painting. Inspired by the symbolism and detail of Dutch Golden Age works, each piece focuses on a specific hue—red, yellow, green, and more—not in isolation, but as a tonal atmosphere guiding the composition.

Painted with classical techniques in oil on aluminum, the miniatures feature carefully chosen objects—fruits, flowers, porcelain, animals—selected for their form, texture, and ability to reflect light within a limited palette. Though not monochromatic, each painting uses color as an emotional thread.

The series began with a painting dominated by blue and white, which transformed the mood in surprising ways. Chasing Color continues that investigation, inviting viewers to slow down, look closely, and experience the quiet power of color through small, intimate works.

Series Eight: Swallowtail

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Monthly Miniature, Swallowtail

This series of Monthly Miniatures centers on swallowtail butterflies—delicate, vibrant, and wildly diverse. With over 500 species across the globe, each painting offered a chance to explore a different form, palette, and story. Some are inspired by personal favorites like the Western Tiger Swallowtail, others by rare and faraway species like the Emperor of India.

Each work draws from a range of influences, from Dutch Golden Age still life to illuminated manuscripts and natural history illustration. While unified by subject and scale, the series allowed for playful shifts in composition and mood—bringing structure and surprise together in each piece.

Swallowtails are fleeting creatures, and these paintings are a way of holding them still for a moment. I hope it invites you to pause, look closely, and enjoy a moment of quiet beauty.

Series Seven: Simplify

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Monthly Miniature: Simplify

“Simplify” began with a wish to bring more clarity and calm into a life full to bursting. Like many artists, I wear a lot of hats—mother, partner, friend, gardener, and creator. My days are often chaotic, and in the thick of that noise, I longed for space to breathe. This series became that space.

Throughout the year, I returned to the idea of distillation—paring things down to their essence. Choosing just one focus per painting became both a challenge and a meditation. Some compositions came easily; others resisted resolution. 

Though the subjects range from citrus to tulips, butterflies to seashells, what unites them is a commitment to slowing down and honoring small wonders. These works are rooted in memory, history, and love: the warmth of a childhood farm, a parent’s devotion, the influence of artists like Adriaen Coorte and Barbara Regina Dietzsch.

“Simplify” isn’t about doing less—it’s about making space for meaningful reflection. It’s my reminder to pause, observe, and savor.

Series Six: Creature Comforts

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Monthly Miniature, Creature Comforts

This series of Monthly Miniatures was created during the pandemic. Each painting explores small pleasures—warm drinks, homemade breakfasts, birthday cakes, and shared rituals—that offered moments of joy amid global uncertainty. These intimate still lifes reflect on how simple things can nourish us, especially when the world feels heavy.

Each piece is carefully composed using classical techniques, with nods to historical porcelains, botanical collections, and domestic traditions. Yet the stories they tell are personal: a toast to the new year, hot chocolate by the fire, the scent of fresh baked bread, or the sweetness of a slice of cake made with love.

Creature Comforts is a celebration of food, beauty, and the memories we build around them. It’s about finding richness not in extravagance, but in the familiar. I hope these small paintings remind viewers to pause, take comfort, and savor the simple things that sustain us.

Series Five: Flight of Fancy

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Monthly Miniature, Flight of Fancy

This series brings together birds from my garden, porcelains from the Seattle Art Museum, and seasonal fruits and flowers in homage to the Dutch still life tradition. I draw on my experiences both as a painter and as a former mount maker at SAM, where I handled hundreds of porcelain objects and developed a deep appreciation for their craftsmanship.

Each painting weaves together elements from personal memory, daily life, and museum collections. The birds—familiar visitors to my backyard—symbolize joy and connection, while the objects reflect my continued fascination with art history and material beauty.

With Flight of Fancy, I explore how disparate elements can be united through composition, mood, and light. These miniature works are a celebration of observation, care, and the interplay between nature and culture. They honor the everyday magic that surrounds us—whether flitting across a garden or sitting quietly on a shelf.

Series Four: In Season

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Monthly Miniature, In Season

The miniature series In Season consists of still-life paintings in the Dutch tradition, inspired by the Northern European works of the 1600s–1800s. Historically, these paintings often featured impossible seasonal combinations—blossoms, fruits, and insects painted from studies made months apart—emphasizing impermanence and life’s transience.

In Season honors that tradition while grounding each composition in the present moment. Every miniature features plants, animals, and insects that naturally occur at the same time, drawn from my backyard garden, or foraged locally. I paint what blooms, scurries, or ripens in real time: camellia and cave cricket in January, ripe plums and butterflies in August, robins and irises in spring. 

This project began as a way to slow down, to notice the world outside my window and celebrate the beauty of the cyclical and ephemeral. In an era of year-round abundance, seasonal awareness feels almost radical. These paintings are my way of marking time—not just by the calendar, but through what the earth offers.

To learn more about each specific painting, go to my blog.

Series Three: The children of Artists

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Monthly Miniature, The Children of Artists

I worried how motherhood might fit alongside my art practice, but I’ve been amazed by how the two continue to grow together. The Children of Artists series began just before my son’s first birthday – a mantra of courage and a quiet celebration of creative persistence. The first painting in the series features my own son; each subsequent portrait captures another artist’s child.

This project is a meditation on holding space for two consuming passions: caregiving and creation. It’s also a thank you to my inspiration – the many artists I admire who continue to make work while raising children. I’ve asked each of them to share reflections on their experience balancing parenthood and studio life. Reading their stories, I see my own struggles and joys mirrored back.

You can read those stories, learn more about each portrait and the artwork their parents make on my blog.

Series Two: Into the Country

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Monthly Miniature, Into the Country

Please go to Into the Country (larger works) to see bigger paintings in this series.

My early memories are few but vivid, with joy and sorrow in equal measure. When I was small, I discovered the aftermath of a weasel attack in the hen house. Yet I also remember the sole survivor, a newly hatched chick who followed me everywhere. As my father succumbed to Multiple Sclerosis, the rest of us took more responsibility for the animals, and I reveled in it.

Now I paint animals, revisiting fond memories of my dad and the wonder of growing up on a small family farm. My work also draws influences from the language of portraiture from the Northern Renaissance and the Dutch Golden age of painting, and the animals that grace my life today. I seek not only the likeness of my subject, but also the beauty particular to them.

The second Monthly Miniature series, Into the Country, features animals from my mother-in-law’s herds and flocks (and more). Portraits from the series are painted in a style inspired by the classical Dutch portrait, and continue a mood from the first miniature in the “Paintings of Rabbits” series. The series began as my ongoing Monthly Miniature project, but evolved to also include larger paintings.

Series One: Paintings of Rabbits

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Monthly Miniature, Paintings of Rabbits

The first Monthly Miniature series chronicles two large personalities in my studio, rabbits Charlemagne and Eleanor. Paintings of Rabbits takes miniature portraiture to strange, new places. Finding new ways to portray the same two rabbits was a great challenge that became more generative and exciting as the series progressed, with every other painting inspiring ideas for new future work.

For me, painting animals is much like painting people. Seeking the subject’s personality, a narrative, a mood remain steady areas of focus. With each painting, I learn more about these personable yet highly individual creatures, and my own connection to them, at once foreign and familiar.

Each Monthly Miniature in this series is fitted to a unique, hand-restored antique frame.