Miniature painting: Do not try this at home ;-)

So, I just put the last hand to a tiny portrait of a familiar face, an old friend of mine in need of a present for her husband's birthday. For those of you interested in miniature portraits, I'd like to share the process behind it all... Or rather, snippets of it. ;-)

This time I'm working on vellum (=calfskin, poor little baby ;-( ), which wasn't the material par préferénce in the 1700s, but it was still used from time to time along with enamel - the favoured material for miniatures of the previous century. Vellum has a nice sheen to it which is comparable to ivory, another not too animal friendly material which was the preferred base for miniatures in the 18th century. (Ivory and vellum can be replaced with synthetic surfaces like ivorine or polymin, by the way.)

Well, here we go..

1. Sketching, sketching... As usual I'm using a photo for reference and drawing according to the classic sight-size method.

2. After cutting the vellum to shape with scissors, I transfer the outlines of the drawing onto the surface using the carbon paper technique... For the first watercolour layer I'm using light blue for the skin and gray for the hair, building up transparent layers of shadows. For midtones and highlights, the vellum should be left more or less blank, making the natural glow of the material shine through.

4. Putting on the first layers of colours... not easy since vellum - like ivory - is a non absorbent surface so one has to keep the brush as dry as possible too keep the separate layers intact. One should always dilute the colours slightly with a good medium (I'm using Eliza Turk's Aquarella) or gum arabic. Be careful with the latter, though, too thick layers of gum arabic can make the colours crack and peel off the surface (been there, done that!)

5. The second layer. Time to do some highlights in pure, opaque white.

6. Done! Kind of...

7. I always prefer to use frames with (convex) glass, but this particular frame didn't have one so I had to use (a non water soluble!) lacquer, a firm backing for the vellum (which has an annoying tendency to warp) and glue. But the glittering paste locket is lovely anyway. :-)

One word of warning though - DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME without prior experience of portrait and/or watercolour painting as well as field studies of original miniature paintings in museums and antique shops - and handbooks (there are several out there). Unless you want an opportunity to invent new swear words... ;-) After all, it's about trying to paint a person's likeness in a tiny scale onto a non absorbent surface, so if you decide to plunge into it - expect a lot of trial and error.

A fan for a man

While the fan has been regarded as a feminine accessory for hundreds of years in the Western world, men who used fans were of course not unheard of in the 18^th century. For obvious reasons, this phenomenon was more common in the Mediterranean climate. In Northern Europe, it was usually seen as exclusive to effeminate fops. 

I may have failed to find a picture of an
18th century "man fan". So here's a
picture of a man who definitely did use
fans: Lord John Hervey (1696-1743),
aka "Lord Fanny". Image source:
Wikipedia

For example, an Italian who visited Stockholm in the early 1700s stirred some attention when he fanned himself with a small Chinese fan ”in the manner of women”. This attitude seems to have changed as the century progressed, however. Many men bought tourist fans (much like the ones of today) on their Grand Tours and travels, and most of these men probably didn't abstain from using them when they needed to cool themselves off. Fans with hidden erotic motifs also seem to have been popular.

Fans for men are usually described as quite plain, unadorned things which were generally darker in colour than their female counterparts. (Which I find interesting, considering the fact that the 18^th century man was not afraid of wearing bright colours, sparkling jewellery and elaborate flower embroideries.) Anyway, during all my years of research, I still haven't come across a ”man fan”– at least not one that has been identified as one of those plain, dark things made specifically for a man. Some examples from previous centuries, like a leather fan that reputedly belonged to Charles I of England have been preserved, but so far I have yet to see one from the 18^th century.

Italian "Grand Tour" fan, ca 1790.
Image source: www.ventagli.org

So when I was assigned with the task to make a fan for my friend Armand, I had to rely on guesswork. Using a set of plain black wooden sticks, I made a leaf out of black laid paper, with a monogram letter and silver sequins as the only decorations. Simple but very elegant.

(And no, the leaf is NOT stained. I just couldn't be arsed to remove the strange dots/dust particles/whatever in Photoshop. The photo happened to be taken in a very haunted house, by the way... ;-) )

Sources: Kulturen 1976- 1700-talet (Kulturen i Lund)

Aristocrats- the illustrated companion to the television series- Stella Tillyard

Belt buckle

I have been somewhat obsessed with cut steel jewellery and -buckles lately and typical late Georgian belt buckles in particular. Buckles with miniature paintings are adorable indeed, but I find the ones with Wedgwood plaques lovelier still...

"Cupid unmasked".

Unfortunately, these specimens are hard to come by for most reenactors, especially those who don't have hundreds or thousands of £/$ to spend on the real thing.
So, I've wanted to make one by myself for a while, with whatever suitable materials that I could find. I didn't quite think the construction through to start with, I just started with buying a porcelain blank for the decorative "medallion".... The idea was that the result was going to look a bit like this rather famous example below, from the Kyoto costume institute...

So I painted the blank in watercolour, using a cute design from a fan leaf (below), and sealed the painting with spray lacquer. 

Commissioning a silver (or steel!) setting from a gold smith was, of course, out of the question for both practical and economical reasons. I went around and looked for suitable belt blanks and oval pieces of metal that could be used, to no avail.

The idea was to glue the porcelain blank onto the metal piece and then glue cut-steel-looking rivets or beads around the edges. Then the buckle slides, which were to be made out of thick metal wire and bended to shape, could be soldered to the surface on the backside. Or something.

That didn't work, I only found sheets of very thin metal with extremely sharp edges. And it rusted as well! 

But despite all that, I still managed to make a rather decent looking buckle...

First, I made an oval "setting" in cernit clay (sculpey) and baked it. Then the porcelain blank was stuck to the surface with super glue. The "cut steel" beads of faceted glass were threaded onto a very thin metal wire and glued around the edges. Holes were drilled on the backside and then I glued the bended pieces of metal wire into the holes. And voila!

If you intend to make one for yourself, however, make sure that the metal pieces are of the same length and also that the holes are correctly placed, otherwise the buckle will hang askew on the belt/sash.

Well, now I'm only looking for an occasion to wear it... :-)