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Paintings

During a summer in Pakistan I had the privilege of taking miniature painting classes. It is a gruelling process as you have to start by making the paper, the paint and pigments. You are required to use paint brushes made from the tail hairs of a female squirrel. It is vitally important that there are no lumps in the paint. This is an attempted copy of a traditional Mughal portrait from the 17th Century.

This is a drawing of my own design, heavily imitating all the typical elements of traditional ones. Students of miniature painting can spend up to a year learning about what pressure to exert on the pencil over the paper (basically none). The image has to be surrounded by paper in case the grease of a finger smudges the pencil marks.

This image was designed by the tutor, inspired by traditional subject matter. the paper required special treatment for this particular style, stained evenly with tea. essentially you need to paint with a dry brush or it will disrupt the background.

This piece was the result of playing about with paper, inspired by works at the London Design Museum (Ingrid Siliakus for example). I decided to make it look like a butterfly wing under a magnifying glass, or even a miniature painting under a microscope with its tiny brush strokes. The shape of the paper is supposed to create the image of colours produced by light passing through a prism.

Despite the 18th Century French hot air balloon being marvellous example of art and style, they are rarely depicted anywhere, even in art books. The trickiest part was preparing the colours (like a Laduree box). I made it for a re-imagination of the Arabian Nights, a new twist on the flying carpets, re-defining magic in a 18th century context.

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