Currently, when creating two consecutive plots in an ipython notebook, they are displayed one below the other:
Pretty sure there isn't away to do so without the subplot or grid plot methods. As for the plot size, you can specify their sizes with something like ax[0].axes([.65, .6, .2, .2]) or plt.subplots(1, 2, figuresize=(12,4)). Unfortunately, this is how matplotlib is setup. If you use the interpreter, you can resize the GUI.