A Tiny Painting for a Tiny Person

Next week Sawyer will be 4 months old.  I feel like he was born yesterday and forever ago all at the same time.  Just recently I've been getting back into the swing of things painting-wise, but mostly over the past few months I've been getting to know the new guy :)

So far it appears he likes...

sleeping,

tellling secrets to his brother,

and the Memphis Grizzlies,

but only if they win.

"What do you mean they lost last night? Nooooooo..."

People keep telling me how "big" he is but I can't stop marveling at how tiny he is.  About a month or so after he was born I made him a tiny little painting for his birth announcement. 

The painting is just 3" x 3." 

When I was in school, every professor I had was all, "Go big, paint big!  Big, big, bigger!!"  I lugged ginormous sheets of paper across campus like a ginormous dork and did as I was told.  But lately I've been giving in to my tendency to want to paint smaller and smaller.  And nobody's here to tell me not to.  So small it is.

The painting is basically a family portrait of where we are now- living in Memphis, Seth dying to get his hands on baby brother, poor ol' Rusty just trying to stay out of the way, and Robert and I together in the background watching over the two tiny people and fur face. 

Obviously, those are Sawyer's initials on the blanket and the "15" is for 2015.  I painted Seth sporting the Ole Miss cap that he wears everywhere on the daily.  Some Sundays he even wears it to church, and we just keep telling people that it's his "Easter bonnet" even though we're long past Easter now.     

No way he's slowing down for a photo. Action shots only these days!

The toy truck is for the eleventy million toy cars and trucks that currently plague our family.  They are in every room of the house, in our vehicles, in my bag, in our beds, in the tub, on the counters, and under our bare feet in the dark of  night.  Seth loves to line them up over and over again.

"Look, Mommy! I made a trainnnnnn!"

The other two objects in the painting are mostly there for artistic purposes.  I needed them to balance the painting. 

I chose the basketball because it reminded me of the day Sawyer was born.  Seth was playing with a basketball in the living room the morning my contractions started, and the dang thing even showed up in the background of that one last photo Robert snapped of my giant pregnant-self before we headed to the hospital. 

The bottle just seemed like a universal "baby" symbol so I painted it in last.

I always feel proud when I finish a painting.  But this one?  This tiny, simple little painting?  

"Welcome Sawyer" 3x3 watercolor on paper by Holly B. Johnson ©2015

Best one yet!