This has been both a nightmare and a revelation. The first because ‘small’ is a challenge on several levels (all those faculties that don’t work so well as you get older), and the second because some of it did work relatively well despite those constraints. I also realised that my initial choice of twenty found images did not necessarily map well onto the actual assignment: some were really not at all interesting to paint, and some were, for me, impossible to paint. As a result, I substituted a few as the task unfolded. Luckily – or by design – some of the early exercises using different media in all sorts of combinations played well into my need to do something different with each of the tiny squares. I lost the imperative to ‘get it right’ and found an energy in just getting it done in a way that engaged my sense of exploration and variety. As a result, I think it might be hard for anyone to attribute all of them to the same person. The black and white cat, the ghosted brown-ish cat, Avatar, and the osprey looking like a budgie in big knickers; all mine and all the result of that mother of invention, necessity.