More of the fountain...

I found I had taken a couple of pictures of the Ross Fountain miniature as I was working on it, which I had promptly forgotten about, so have tried to run them together below as a sort of step by step. Sorry there weren't more, I must have originally intended there to be, but nevermind! Hope this works:

royal miniature society exhibition

Tomorrow is the opening of the Royal Miniature Society annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London, which promises to be another wonderful show with nearly 600 of some of the world's finest miniatures on display and daily demonstrations by artists. Most work is for sale. Above are the six paintings I have in the show - not the best photo, quickly snapped before packing, but at least it shows them framed!

A huge congratulations to this year's worthy winner of the Gold Memorial Bowl for the stunning painting 'Reflections 4'. I'm not sure if he has a website, but this link takes you to an interview and shows the winning painting: Iain Gardiner.

The exhibition is open daily from 10am - 5pm, entry is free and it runs until Saturday 23rd October. More details can be found here: Royal Miniature Society.

UPDATE: Read Katherine Tyrrells's review of the show at Making A Mark and a visit to the exhibition on A Private Portrait Miniature Collection (and thank you to Mona for the link!)

the ross fountain, miniature painting

The Ross Fountain, Edinburgh © Tracy Hall 2010

3.25" x 2.25" watercolour on rag board

Wandering through Princes Street Gardens over the summer I was captivated by this fountain (much to the annoyance of small people with me) but especially by the wonderful light of the morning sun hitting it. In reality there is much more of it than I have painted here - I chose to concentrate on the middle section (it was my favourite bit) which has a ring of nymphs representing the arts, science, poetry and industry, with some long suffering mermaids supporting rather heavy looking dishes on their shoulders.

I think this is the most ambitious miniature I have attempted to date and it took ages, although admittedly it did keep getting put to one side. It was a huge challenge and I wanted to see if I could do it. I'm pleased with how it turned out but somehow don't think I'll be rushing to try anything similar again soon!

More information here about The Ross Fountain