Miniature Transparent Watercolour Workshop 6

This week I finished the quarter scale painting and have started a couple of new miniature paintings. I have shown the finished tiny painting above with my finished one twelfth scale watercolour. I don't have too much more to say about painting such a tiny painting other than it ends up looking very impressionistic. I think I prefer painting in one twelfth scale or bit larger unless it is an abstract painting. Reproductions with a lot of detail are more difficult in this size, mainly because my brush kept drying out and such a small space doesn't hold as much water. Probably I would enjoy quarter scale painting more with acrylics or oil paints.

In the fist photo, you can see that I have started another transparent painting that I'm really enjoying. We visited the Tuscany and then the Chianti region of Italy last winter and I loved it so much. I purchased a shopping bag with a rooster on it and a tiny Chianti bottle in the winery and have displayed them in my kitchen with a rooster and this bowl of fruit. I loved the fruits so I cropped the photo to paint a close up of the fruit. I loved the light from the window in the photo. I've included a smaller photo of the bowl of fruit for you to print out to give this workshop a try if you like.

Here is the matted watercolour paper with the sketch and paints, I am working on another piece of water colour paper in the background, very handy as paper that I can use try out my watercolours before they are added to the paper to see their intensity, since I want to start adding the transparent colours very lightly.

The photo above shows sketched in areas of the painting that I want to leave white. Really important to study the photo at this point. I have done a very light wash of Holbein Aureolin over the bananas, pears and apples.

 

Daniel Smith's Quinacirdone Coral was then added over the yellow in stages, this is one of my favorite watercolours and can be used very transparent and built up to be opaque. I love the way the bright red shines in the photo and I would like to have that happen in my painting, if I don't get too heavy handed. I also added Windsor Newton Gold Ochre in a very light wash over the bowl and background.

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In this photo I have added washes of  Windsor Newton Cobalt Blue, trying to be as light as I can to leave the lovely red in the grapes. I've also used the cobalt to darken some of the background areas that will be gradually darkened with various colours of washes. Please have a look at the previous watercolour workshops where I explain the brushes, paper and watercolours I'm using.