Making shell gold

I have been making Leaf Gold into Shell Gold. That requires grinding it up on honey. If you want to see just how thin gold leaf is, take a look: Pretty, ain’t it? A casual movement of the hand that

Dragons: Day 2 – Watercolour Layout

Today was the first day I’ll be charging my Dragon-loving client. The first days of sketching were on postcards, to get me used to posing dragons; it is unfair to make a client pay for my early efforts, before I

A Watercolour Landscape

Here, I have a landscape in watercolour. It is pretty simple, and my intention here is to talk you through it. It is mostly made up of washes. A wash is a thin layer of paint that goes on and

Personal Critique: Mangling Holiday Pictures – Part 4

This is not, strictly speaking, a holiday picture. However, it is from the same artist, so it comes in by the door marked ‘holiday’ and gets treated as such. It’s a portrait. I’m good at portraits. I know exactly how

Watercolour Hedgehog

For a client, I spent many hours learning how to paint a hedgehog that looked like a hedgehog but was also cute, and looked like a particular pet hedgehog. From this I learned that oil painting is not always the

Personal Critique: Mangling Holiday Pictures – Part 3

Welcome back to critique of paintings that are not mine; this is a watercolour of Morecambe Bay. First off, the good bits; the people are great. I have a lot of trouble drawing people quickly in watercolour and the artist

Anglesey Seascape: Day 1

As Christmas approached, I managed to get a commission for an introduction made by a client, and in the process nearly pulled off the finest practical joke in my history of slow-burn amusement. Last year, a certain beloved client of