JDayMinis, 1:48 & 1:12 Scale Minis, Laser Cut Designs too.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Miniature Transparent Watercolour Workshop 4





Today for this miniature workshop I will show you more steps I took to get to this part of the painting. I continued with adding the basic watercolours mentioned in Workshop 2,
1.Holbein Aureolin
2.Windsor Newton Rose Madder Genuine
3 Yellow Ochre
4.Windsor Newton Cobalt blue
5.Windsor Newton Burnt Sienna
6. Holbein Cobalt Violet
Using only these six colours you can create so many more colours by thin layering.  Keep layering and adding detail and alternating between all of these colours, watch that you let the layers of colour dry before adding more colour, you can use a hair dryer too but make sure you hold onto the tiny painting or it might fly away. If you are unhappy with any area simply saturate with water and blot, I like to blot as I'm adding watercolour too to avoid excessive pigment too.


Here you can see the addition of rose madder, I have continued to do a light wash of each of these colours. I liked the look of the painting at this point, sort of impressionistic and you can really stop here if you are pleased but it is fun to continue adding detail.


More rose and cobalt violet have been added, the violet is also good to add for shading in the thatching and on the walkway.


Getting darker with the burnt sienna, added more yellow, ochre and blue washes. Now I have started to use my magnifier. You don't have to use a magnifier but it is great for detail in miniatures. Optivisors work well too.


 Here you can see that more detail has been added now with stronger applications of rose and mauve.

 
I have added more detail with the transparent colours, to build up the colours slowly, it will add to the richness of the colours. Remember to use water in areas you may have added too much colour and you want to lighten up, this is the wonderful thing about transparent colours. Alternating burnt sienna and blue work really well for the dark areas. Really important to have paint brushes that will bounce to a beautiful point, I need new ones because today when I was painting my brushes kept turning into three hairs instead of a point, worked well for the thatching though, lol. I often twist the brush in the top of my water dish to help form a point. Artists often have been known to create a point with spit and with all of the various pigments and minerals in the paints it is not a good idea to put the brush in your mouth.

 Here are a couple more of my mini paintings reproduced from Helen Allingham's wonderful paintings. Great way to practice watercolour techniques. These photos are a little washed out compaired to my originals because I scanned them but the detail shows up well.

19 comments:

  1. This is wonderful Jean at lot of full sized watercolour artists couldnt paint like this.
    Debie xxxxxx

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  2. I adore your paintings Jean, wonderful masterpieces.

    Regards, Linda x

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  3. Beautiful, Jean! Burnt sienna is my all-time favorite color in watercolor, acrylic or oil. I love its richness and tone! This is lovely. I'm going to give it a try. It's the darned sketching out of the entire scene that gets me bogged down.

    Jody

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  4. Michelle, Thank you so much!

    Debie, You are so kind!

    Linda, Thank you very much, that is so nice of you!

    Jody, I love Burnt Sienna too especially with a denimy blue. If you click on the photo of the line drawing I used in Workshop 3 you can see that I just traced the general outline of colour areas with graphite paper rather than doing great detail, so much nicer, the detail can come later.

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  5. Your paintings are absolutely gorgeous!

    Silly question, sorry.. Do you wait for each layer to dry thoroughly before adding the next to avoid 'bleeding'?

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  6. vuelvo a felicitarte, las clases son magnificas, y el resultado perfecto.
    Son preciosos
    un abrazo Carmen

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  7. I also want to ask Lize's question. :) I get impatient sometimes but will of course follow what the teacher says :).

    I thought water colour is unforgiving of mistakes but from what I have just read, I think you can mask some mistakes by blotting layers. Good for me. :)

    I love the final drawing of the 1st picture. I also love the subject matter, old houses/ cottages.

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  8. Hi Lize, Yes, at the beginning it is important to let the larger layers of colour dry, you can use a hairdryer too, to dry them if you want to progress faster. Later on in the painting there are so many areas I don't really think about it, they are usually dry by the time I come back to them. It is really important to think about though, I will add that to the blog. Thank you very much about my paintings.

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  9. Carmen, thank you so much, you are such a wonderful artist, I really admire you mini paintings.

    Sans, yes if you are unhappy with an area try adding water and blotting, it might have stained slightly but it will lighten the area up. If you are using strong watercolour paper there is a brush called a scrubbing brush that you can also use to scrub at the area slightly. I added darker blue windows in this painting and I wasn't happy with them at all so I blotted and tried again. Old houses and cottages are wonderful. Thanks so much for dropping by.

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  10. Excellent work Jean!!! It's just perfect and being so tiny doble congratulations!!!
    Thanks for sharing your knowledge in the workshops.
    Hugs
    Meli

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  11. Eres una gran profesora y gran artista.
    Ahora tendremos que intentarlo las demas, yo no creo que me salga ni la mitad de bien, se me dan fatal los pinceles.
    besitos ascension

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  12. Your water collor paintings are little master pieces! thank you for sharing the workshops...I hope one day I will make a painting like yours?

    Sabihax

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  13. Muchas gracias por los tutoriales. Me gusta la pintura en miniatura, pero la mini acuarela se me resiste. Lo intentaré a ver que pasa. Felicidades.
    Saludos
    Ursula Rivero

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  14. I love your step-by-step guides, I must try one myself.
    I have an award for you on my blog.
    Mini hugs,
    Margaret

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  15. Simply lovely, and these tutorials are so inspiring! I actually dug out my watercolors the other day, and tried a few miniature paintings. I need LOTS of practice, but I'm hooked! I can't wait to see more of your work!

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  16. Jean, you have inspired me to pull out my watercolors and have a go at it. Thank you!

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  17. Boy I got behind with thanking everyone, I'm so sorry. You are all so wonderful!

    Meli, You are so welcome, I love doing the workshop.

    Thank you Ascention!

    Sabiha, I'm sure you would be fabulous at watercolour painting, you have such a great eye for details.

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  18. Thank you Ursula! I hope you do try it.

    Margaret, I think you would really enjoy it, very relaxing.

    Eliza, That is so wonderful to hear! I'm sure they are terrific.

    Carol, That is great, I'm sure it will bring you a lot of pleasure.

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Thank you very much, so nice of you to take the time to leave a comment and to visit my blog!

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