I have another account on twitter called @E_M_Portraits - From which I tweet about the latest portraits I am working on etc... I mainly specialise in painting portraits in miniature (basically, stupidly, crazy small paintings), here I will explain further...
Portrait Miniature Painting
The painting below (yes this is a painting that I done!) is that of my friend Dasha and I, on Halloween. The photograph and whole image style, is not a typical pose for any portrait miniature (as they are normally very formal and people are wearing their best clothes when they are painted in miniature) but I decided to take on the traditional methods of painting in miniature (watercolours, smooth board paper, an '00000' size brush which contains around 10 hairs - incredibly fine) but with a modern, more 'funky' approach.
The scan of the painting, shows the immense amount of detail that goes into creating one of these miniatures. Please click on the image to see the thousands of tiny dots. The technique to painting in miniature is dotting, you have to constantly keep dotting the image to build up the layers of colour and create the shading, again, look closely at the images and see for yourself!
I am self taught on painting in miniature and the image you see below was my third attempt at ever trying to paint in miniature.
See image next to coins to understand exactly, how small this painting is.
Portrait Miniature Painting - To Say Thank You
In 2010 I travelled to America, to be tattooed by one of the best portrait tattoo artists in the world, Nikko Hurtado. He is an inspiration of mine and his oil paintings and tattoos astound me like no other... When I was being tattooed by such a master at portraits, I explained to him that I also paint portraits, I told him, as a thank you for the beautiful portrait he had placed on my arm, of my Nan - Elsie May (this is where the name @E_M_Portraits derives) I would paint him a portrait miniature of someone he loves, so he can understand how much it means to have someone like that 'painted' for you... Below is the painting I created for him of his Son...
See the gradual stages of the painting coming together. I always paint the eyes last, same as Nikko did with the tattooed portrait of my Nan - Elsie May,
as he said:
'paint the eyes last, as it's what gives the painting its soul'.
5cm round
Nikko, whom I met again a year later, was totally shocked and thrown by this painting, his partner later sent me an email saying:
"Everyone who comes to our home can't believe that the picture of our son is a painting. It looks amazing. You captured the life and happiness in his face! I love it so much"
This painting was probably one of the most enjoyable pieces of art I have ever created and I now hope to paint Nikko's son, every 5 years. What a lovely treasure to keep through time and future generations... After all, the images are only small and could fit in your pocket.
Yet, my style of art can change from 'Fine Art' to a more abstract, lose, illustrated feel...
Here are some examples of that in simple, black ink and also coloured in, using poster paints, acrylics and pencils...
Interested?
If you are interested in my work, for either the 'Portrait Miniatures' or 'Illustrated Portraits', please feel free to email me on the following, of visit my website and contact me there via an online form:
Thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed
