A New Boxed Paintings: "Shapes"

Shapes, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 3 x 3 x 3/4 in.

When I was working on my last boxed paintings, Squares, which you can see here, I first made a 3 inch square box to contain the paintings, but realized that was too small, so made a 4 inch box. I did keep the 3 inch box though, and thought that a project using shapes might work with this size. So I began cutting out shapes: rectangle, square, triangles, circle, oval, octagon, pentagon, hexagon, diamond, trapezoid, parallelogram.

Shapes, top and inside of box

I give a preview of what's inside the box by the several shapes on the cover. I had a hard time deciding how to paint the inside of the box, even discarding my first attempt. I realized that with the complexity of the shapes, I needed a very simple background.

Shapes, paintings side 1, ca. 7/8 - 1 1/4 in.

Shapes, paintings side 2

 At first I thought I would just paint each shape a solid color, but then decided that would be dull, so I painted shapes on top of the shapes.

Squares and Shapes

This photograph gives an idea of the relative sizes of a 4 inch and 3 inch box. I don't think I'll be working this small again....but, then I think of some of those marvelous tiny medieval manuscript books, prayer books that are only 3 or 4 inches, so maybe......