Making Inchy Art Squares

Moleskine Art Journal

Inchies Glued on and covered with Modge Podge sealer

What is Inchy Art?

Imagine a painting that is square. Now imagine it shrinking down and down and down until it is just 1 inch square. Then imagine a whole plethora of one inch square paintings or collages or texture squares. These little gems are called INCHIES and I'm making some today along with an inchie video tutorial. So while the paint is drying, I'm going to work on this article. Cool beans.

Pink Skull

This will get all cut up.

Chop me up

You can most assuredly make each square one by one. But I wanted to make a lot of squares so I figured it would be way easier to paint a big posterboard and then after it dries flat, cut it into 1" squares. So this entire painting is about to be cut to pieces.

When it is completely dry I will flip it over and pencil a one inch grid on the back and then start cutting.

The Big Picture

Whole painting before I cut it up.

Making the Grid

Decide how many squares you want to make. An 8 x 10 will make 80 squares. The one I'm making is going to make almost 600 squares! Yowsa. So I got a little carried away.

Don't try to draw on the front. Flip it over after it's dry and using a measuring device, draw a one inch grid. Then using scissors or a paper cutter or a rotary cutter or an exacto knife, cut out your squares.

Making Inchies

Grid on back

Collect the inchies

Skull Puzzle

Now decorate your inchies.

If you want you can call these done. But now comes the most fun part of all. Adding things to the inchies like string and buttons and stamped images and doodling and ephemera and sequins and wiggly eyes and whatever your heart desires as long as it will fit on there.

What to do with your inchies

You can collect them, sell them or swap them. You can turn them into jewelry. You can use them as special treasure on your art journals or scrapbooking pages. You can use them to decorate a doll house or a puppet theater. It's totally up to you. You could even glue them to your business cards. Success comes an inch at a time.

New Video

My craft a day blog.

Happy Memorial Weekend
I feel mostly better today. I'm sad I missed all the big Memorial weekend events like Portrero and the Petaluma archery shoot. But I think I'm well enough to do art today. Thanks to all our vets past and present. You know who you are. Remember that peace should always be our first choice. But until everyone else makes that their choice, it's good to have a back up plan.
A.C.E.O.'s for a Mere $1. Plus Postage
I think I just about have this cold whipped. I'm planning on making some ACEO's (Art Cards Editions and Originals). In the hopes of getting lots of my art out there and making it affordable for anyone to have original art, I'm dropping the price of each miniature art creation to $1 for the card and $1. for shipping and handling. These aren't prints. They are mini drawings, paintings, or collages. In the past I've sold these from $8 to $20 per card. But I could never find steady buyers. I'm thinking of making a million $1.00 ACEOs. Of course if you want to buy 100 of them, I'm not going to charge you $100 for shipping. LOL. I'm sure I can do combined shipping. If you do buy A.C.E.O.'s from me or anyone else, read the descriptions carefully. Make sure you know if you are getting a print or an original. And a print (as made on a copy machine or computer printer) is not considered an original piece of art, whereas a linoleum block print or a letterpress print or a Gocco print is an original work of art. If the artist is applying ink to a surface, then pulling prints one by one those are considered originals and are often numbered like 1/100 (one of one hundred). I haven't started the new ACEO's yet, but here are some I've done in the past. Remember, if it's not 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" it's not an A.C.E.O. If this is all new to you, I wrote an article on it here: Designing and Collecting Art Cards.
Used Tool Swap Meet
The weekend was kind of a bust as I managed to get sick and missed the archery event. I stayed home and read A Cast-Off Coven by Juliet Blackwell instead. I want to finish that one before I start reading the Hunger Games. I did go to a used tool swap meet on Sat. We had to get up at 5 AM to be in LA as soon as possible. My boyfriend got five or six draw knives, some calipers and some odds and ends. There was one vendor selling old rusty tools for $1 each would have been great for assemblages and restaurant decor.

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