Miniature Portraits

Over the past few years, I've started dabbling in miniature portrait painting. The paintings are shown in chronological order, and each time I make one, I seem to learn a few new tricks. The first two portraits were painted with traditional English limning techniques, which I found quite foreign to my usual methods of painting. But after falling in love with some of Sofonisba Anguisciola's miniature portraits done in oil, I decided to give that medium a try to see if I liked it any better. After doing more research, I discovered that oil "portraits in little" were quite common in the 16th century, even though they aren't as well known as their gouache counterparts. I enjoy working with both mediums, but I think I will stick with the oils for awhile since they are a bit more forgiving than the gouaches. These thumbnails are pretty close to the actual size of each painting, but you can click on the pictures to see some enlarged scans.

gouache on vellum - 2003 1.75" X 1.5"	gouache on vellum - 2004 1.75" X 1.5"	oil on board - 2005 2.5" X 2.5"

oil on vellum - 2005 1.75" X 1.5"	oil on vellum - 2005 1.75" X 1.5"

oil on board - 2006 2" X 1.5"	oil on board - 2006 1.75" X 1.5"