INCHIES, TWINCHIES AND SO ON

This past winter I discovered a new art craze and it's called "Inchie Art".  It consists of tiny one inch square pieces of art work.  They can be made of anything, paper, mat board, felt, leather, etc. as long as they measure one inch square.  They're painted, woven, stuffed, collaged, sewn, tangled, etc.  


When they're finished they can be framed either separately or in groups.  Special frames are made just for inchies and be ordered from the internet.  They can be made of cloth, decorated, stuffed and mounted onto tiny canvases that stand on small easels sold just for this purpose and they can be displayed in small shadow boxes  The options are endless.  Inchies can be used to make greeting cards and gift tags.  People make jewelry and fold out books with these little gems.  They are also swapped on Yahoo and eBay, and they're fun to do.


Many supplies are available for inchie making:  frames, precut mat board inchies, jewelry to mount them in, special stickers and collage materials just for inchies, and on and on.  To find these supplies simply do a web search for them by typing in the word "Inchie", of course.


Then....there's Twinchies!  As you may have already guessed they are the same thing only they measure two inches square.  They call 1 1/2" squares Betweenchies, I believe.  And, when they're round they're called Rinchies.  Pretty confusing!  


They're all fun to do, however, and like so many of the miniature artworks that have gotten popular lately, they can be done with so many different materials and used in so many different ways.  The sky's the limit.  For more information, examples, links to inchie websites, supplies such as precut Inchies and frames, and a detailed explanation of exactly what these little gems are all about, here is a link that explains it all far better than I can:


http://stamphenge.wordpress.com/1-2/inchies-twinchies-definitions/


I had fun dabbling in inchies myself and below are a few demos of how I made mine, the materials I used and what I did with my tiny little artworks once they were completed...




1.)  For my first few attempts at creating inchies I simply got out my watercolors and painted them.  When I had what I wanted I glued them into my 11" X 14" visual journal, sometimes mounting them on a background first, drew a frame around them and wound up with very decorative visual journal pages. 


Below is my first attempt, a silly little bunch of inchies depicting the beach where I spend my winter months...

"Water Temperature 92 Degrees, Naples Beach"

Next I wanted to do something colorful, so I made a few tiny little cup stencils, traced them onto watercolor paper that I cut to square inch size, and painted all sorts of colorful cups that I then glued and "framed" into my large visual journal...

"Lotsa Cups"

I loved a little poem that I found on a tissue box this past winter and so for my next inchie creation I copied parts of it and made an inchie display using it.  When I had what I wanted I mounted the inchies on a piece of Scrapbook Paper that looked like grass and then mounted all of that into the same journal...

"What's This I See?"

2.)  Once I began playing with inchies my mind began to think of more and more ways to create them.  Next I decided to collage a few.  

For my first attempt I got out a few old magazines and cut out one inch squares of color to make a rainbow that I had in mind.  When I was finished I glued all the square inch pieces down in my visual journal.  Here is a picture from my studio of the materials I used to make "Roy G. Biv"...

Ruler, Roller To Press Glued Pieces Down, Scissors, Old Magazine To Do My Gluing On, and Piles Of Inchies In Rainbow Colors 


And, the end result...

"Roy G. Biv"

3.)  Well, that was fun.  So, next I decided to use my own artwork to make a couple of Twinchies (2" squares).  First I scanned my own paintings.  Then I resized each scan into 2" X 2" squares, cut them out, mounted them together on suitable backgrounds and finally inserted the final pieces of artwork into my large sketchbook. 

 "The Gallery"

"The Ladies"

To see my Inchie Greeting Card Demos please click here.

My examples pale in comparison to many of the much more creative inchies you'll find by searching the web.  But, I hope you've been inspired to try making a few of your own and looking further into the Inchie Craze if you've never tried them before, and as always thanks for looking in!