Pushing the Inchies

I mentioned inchies as an option for exploring variation a couple days ago but have been thinking maybe a brief word on breaking out of the inchie tradition of minimal variation was worth a post. If you aren’t familiar with inchies they are simply one inch square tiles of artwork. They are often made for swaps and exchanges at events, somewhat like art trading cards but tiny.

As a means for exploring variation, the use of this concept is hard to beat. Inchies give you a limited space to work in but no limitations on what you do with it. And for those of us who have limited time and resources, creating them while exploring variation means we get to build a stock of exchangeable tiny samples of our art for the next inchie exchange while pushing ourselves artistically.

Although most inchies are created to be quickly produced, don’t rush or limit your exploration of variation through inchies. Here are a few inchies by the Philippines’ Donna Cruz-Comia that obviously took some time but what wonderful results.

The consistency that makes these inchies related are that they are all petals and are built off a corner. Beyond that, that couldn’t be more different. But its this kind of work, pushing a limited idea such as the many ways one can create a petal and build the form of a flower from it that will result in new discoveries for you.

And how impressive will your inchies be at the next exchange if you created such involved work as this? Isn’t exploration wonderful?