This painting came
about after a visit to London zoo; I was very keen to paint a gorilla
and happy to get a few photographs that I could work with. The gorilla’s
expression in one picture seemed particularly haunting and as the work
progressed it became more personal - it became, for me, a portrait of
Effie. (I have enlarged the painting hugely below to try and show as
much as possible and a penny is shown with the completed painting which
gives an idea of the actual size of 3.25" x 2.25").
I’m using hot
pressed watercolour board for this painting. It is lovely and smooth but
also fairly robust which allows for a certain amount of reworking to get
the initial drawing right without damaging the surface. I loosely block
in the background and body, and begin to define the face.
Building up
layer upon layer of colour on the body, still quite loosely. At this
stage I’m using no magnification and a no. 3 brush. Having decided to
keep everything very simple I opted for a dark background for impact and
played up the lighting somewhat from the original reference photos.
Debating now
whether to work on the face or continue with the body, I decided to
leave the face until later as it would be the part I would most enjoy!
Therefore I switch to a smaller size 10/0 brush and start adding detail
to the body. I work in the direction of the hair growth and use opaque
colour (by adding titanium white watercolour to the mix) to create the
fine hairs. Every so often I push these layers back by adding a glaze
over the top and then repeating the process to build up the effect of
thick, coarse hair.
Beginning to define the face - gradually establishing the contours and
keeping the white of the paper for the lightest areas. This involves
many washes and blending hard edges. I begin work on the eyes and
continue to work on the hair when I need a break from the absolute
concentration required to complete the face. By this stage, I’m working
with the aid of a hand-held magnifying glass which just allows for that
bit more precision for the fine details.
The finished painting, shown with a ‘ghost’ penny to
give an idea of scale. This painting was shortlisted for the David
Shepherd Wildlife Foundation ‘Wildlife Artist of the Year’ exhibition at
the Mall Galleries, London, in the summer of 2010 where it received a
Highly Commended award and sold – half the proceeds going directly to
help fund the many conservation projects undertaken by the DSWF around
the world.
A close up of the finished face. The eyes are only about
3mm across so a steady hand is needed to paint them - and breathing is
not an option!
A true
miniature will fit in the palm of you hand but shares all the qualities
and challenges common to fine art of any size. One of my favourite
descriptions is from the National Gallery: ‘A
miniaturist is an artist who works in great detail on a very small
scale’. There are
several international societies devoted to Miniature Art and a growing
number of gallery shows reflect renewed interest from the wider art
world. I hope you have enjoyed this demo and would like to have a go
yourself. Miniature Art is highly collectable - and highly addictive!
Tracy Hall 2011.
The above demo
was originally put together for
I-ART, an online art resource and information site by Melanie
Phillips.
