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.