More Miniatures

Tina

T I N A
While watching one of those many Antiques programs on TV the other day, I saw a young lady who spent a lot of her time painting miniature portraits. She was very good, and it got me wondering if I could do something like that.

You may remember my last foray into the world of miniature a while back with a watercolour painting of a terrace in Bath, England. Well, just for a little diversity, I thought I'd have a go in acrylics this time.

The painting of Tina here is 5"x5" and is the smallest painting that I have done to date. Even so, I did spend quite some time on it, as I am still learning with this medium - but I think at last that I am getting somewhere with it!

source photo

I have no idea how to use acrylics properly (if there is a proper way). As most of the work on this has been done with small brushes, I've found myself using the current brush to mix the colours rather than the palette knife, pulling in different colours as needed. In the larger areas, I've used the paint well watered down to start with, then adding layers of thicker paint for detail.



The young here has lovely soft skin, so I've found myself adding water and flow improver to blend the subtle skin colours together rather than leaving hard edges to the brush strokes.


This painting has now been framed, and is in a small exhibition at the Market Harborough Building Society. This is an excellent initiative by this company to host works of local artists for free, giving us much needed publicity.