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MINIATURE PORTRAITS – Morag Caister
Series winner Morag Caister often brought us to tears with her outstanding ability to capture the essence of a sitter in very few lines. In this episode, she will show you how to do the same on a miniature scale and prove that less is more.
Reference Image
Materials
Paper
Set of Oil paints
Pencil
Selection of fine brushes
Palette
Solvent
Find these items at cassart.co.uk
The composition
For this full body portrait you will need an A5 sheet of paper affixed to a board or other hard surface.
Look at the reference image and visualize your composition and proportions before you begin sketching. Feel free to use any tool you feel comfortable with (e.g a pencil, pastel or small paintbrush). Whichever gives you a nice line.
Start by sketching the contact point between the model and the sofa. This is the elbow, and will show the weight of the model against the sofa. Take your time and think about the marks you are putting down. Try to keep contact between your tool and paper as this will remove the need to focus on the detail. This means the marks you put down will be heavy with information.
Continue to sketch the model, their clothes, the sofa etc until you have a complete compositional sketch.
Top tip – As you are sketching, keep returning to the first mark you put down. This will act as an anchor for the rest of the sketch and ensure your proportions are correct
Applying colour
Squeeze your chosen oil paints onto your palette and mix accordingly.
Working in miniature means you cannot be overly detailed. Don’t worry about perfectly recreating the colours of the model’s hair/ clothes/ the sofa. Try and find the average shade for each part of the painting and apply it accordingly. At this stage do not paint the model’s skin tone.
Top tip- Look at your model, can one colour be used on more than one part of the painting? This will minimise the amount of times you have to wash your brush.
Skin Tones
For skin tone, it is best to mix more precise colours and apply them to smaller areas. If you prefer, you can paint the skin tones using average shades, like you did when you painted the clothing and furniture.
Top tip – Allow yourself to make quick decisions. Don’t worry if you make mistakes, do not get bogged down in detail. Working like this will help develop your style and inform later paintings.
Finishing
Miniature sketches like this are preparatory sketches for bigger work you plan to do at a later stage. As such, the painting might not look finished, this is ok as long as you have learnt something about your style at the end of the session.