More Studio Updates

I’ve actually been quite busy over the Autumn and Winter.  I was VERY pleased to finish casting and cleaning the final copies of Union Jack.

Sweet Lullaby was pretty curious about the whole thing!

I’d been working on a project for almost a year, picking it up when I could and packing it away when I was unable to get to it.  It was a long-overdue thank you gift for Joanie Berkwitz, who made my visit to San Diego for BOYCC such a delight.  It all started with the trio of portraits I did for her a few years ago.  Well, Joanie has a stunning doll’s house that her Grandfather built many years ago.  In recent times she has been restoring the house and furnishing it with many delightful accessories, including three beautifully crafted miniatures of her dogs, which inspired my thank-you gift.

So, working from Joanie’s own blog from the year before, I sourced some frames* and treated them in a similar way to hers, but using ink and renaissance wax to darken and “antique” the bright brass finish they come in.  This was in March 2012.

*I actually bought mirrors by mistake but as it turned out, they worked out much better for the job, serving as a base for the art to sit against.

My plan was to recreate the three dog portraits in miniature form.  I wanted them to be as accurate as possible so to make sure I got the details in just the right place I printed reduced size copies of the portraits VERY faintly onto the same paper I used for the originals.

I then got to work using acrylic paints (for a more vibrant and accurate image) and teeny-tiny brushes to recreate the portraits.

This photo is a good example of how I made the time to work on these – it was take on a picnic table, in a tent, in the Peak District, where Adam and I were on holiday.  A wise lady told me recently that artists never rest, I’m starting to understand her point now!  This was in June 2012.

In October 2012 I finally gave myself the chance to get these portraits finished.  Joanie had asked for a new portrait, of her Mother and Grandmother’s cat; Mary-Elizabeth.  I knew she would be expecting the portrait from me and that I could somehow surprise her with the miniatures too so I got my head down and got them done!  They turned out to be almost impossible to photograph, especially with the late-Autumn lack of daylight but this seems to be the best shot I got of them.

Here they are with the cat portrait:

I couldn’t package the minis in with the commissioned portrait without risking damage, so I had a think of how they would be shipped “full size” traditionally and the idea of a shipping crate came to mind.  I searched high and low for a 1:12 scale shipping crate and eventually looked into making one from Balsa wood, but in the end I discovered a lovely card “trunk” which I felt fit the bill and used the closest thing I had to miniature straw.  I wrapped it up in brown paper (trying to keep with the feel of Joanie’s chosen period for the doll’s house) and sent the portraits on their way along with the larger one.

I’m pleased to say that Joanie was happy with the portrait – all four of them!  The miniatures are now permanently hung in the sitting room of the doll’s house.  I am SO proud to have been a part of Joanie’s doll’s house project, it is a wonderful legacy to her Grandfather as it will be to her.  It is also a little window into the Model Horse Hobby – if you’re wondering why I say this, scroll back up and go check out her blog and if you are her “friend”, her Facebook page.

This only takes us up to October  – told you I’d been busy, hehe!