Artist Elizabeth Mulderig is seeing her work through fresh eyes – literally.

Bermudian painter and children's book author, Miss Mulderig, has been producing a semi bi-annual show of miniature paintings for 20 years.

This year, a strong pair of glasses – her first pair – is the reason her miniature paintings have shrunk to their smallest size ever.

"The paintings have been getting smaller and smaller," said Miss Mulderig.

"They started out as being five inches by seven inches. Now they are three inches by three inches. It is because I am wearing very thick glasses now, and I can paint that small."

"I had a perfect eye test at the age of 40, but two years later, I couldn't read a menu," she said. "So when it goes, it really goes fast," she said.

"That is when I switched to doing smaller paintings. Because of the new glasses, I suddenly had a very clear and very large vision of the world."

Miss Mulderig's miniature paintings tend to have a Bermuda theme and all have a pun attached to them, such as 'air mail', 'spool house' or 'kettle clouds'.

"Quite a few people like buying my paintings in groupings," said Miss Mulderig. "Because they are so small they look good together. I have some people who return show after show who are collecting them.

"I don't think there is anything else like them in Bermuda. I think they might be the smallest paintings in Bermuda."

She said the ideas for the puns often just come to her out of nowhere, or through the suggestions of friends.

"I will see something that will trigger a thought," she said. "Some people sometimes throw out puns.

"My friend Susie thought 'diamond in the ruff' would be fun for golfers. So I painted a diamond on a golf tee."

She now puts brass plaques on her paintings, because the title of the paintings is so important.

"I painted a lighthouse with a spool of thread on top, just because I loved the image," she said. "I thought this is so strange and what is it supposed to be.

"A friend of mine who is a writer from New York, looked at it and named it 'Spool House'. So I definitely get some help from other people."

Miss Mulderig said she always tries to include a miniature with a shoe or purse theme, because so many of her friends like shoes and purses.

"I don't have a purse one this year, but I have 'Shoe Flies'," she said. "I also try to do quite a few beach and sea ones."

She said this was significant because 10 percent of the proceeds are going to the Bermuda Institute for Ocean Sciences (BIOS) this year.

She was inspired to choose BIOS as this year's charity because her friend, Billy Williams, is a trustee.

"He was telling me about some of the great things they are doing there," she said. "BIOS is literally exploring about 80 percent of the unknown world which is the ocean.

"One of the things they are studying is the sea urchin which lives on and on. It doesn't suffer from cancer. Scientists are studying it to see how they can stop ageing.

"They say that age is just a number, but when you get to a certain age, age becomes a scary number. So bless those sea urchins," she said with a laugh.

"So BIOS is not just studying the environment – which we should be thinking of daily – but also studying how to maybe come up with cures for diseases."

Miss Mulderig is engaged to Hubert Watlington and they plan to marry in April.

"I think they are really happy paintings because I am extremely happy right now," she said.

Her latest show of miniatures is today at the Coral Beach Club in the lobby from 5.30 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The drinks will be rum swizzles and the hors d'oeuvres will be codfish cake and potato balls, to honour Bermuda's 400th anniversary.