WATERCOLOUR ON IVORINE

Painting miniatures on ivorine can be very rewarding – the translucent surface provides a glow that is hard to achieve any other way. It is possible to work on ivorine with almost any medium, but to my mind, watercolour is a natural partner because of its transparency. There is plenty of scope for joys and frustrations with the natural inclination of watercolour to do its own thing and the added excitement of knowing that you can so easily remove paint with a damp brush (or errant finger!)

The traditional method of using watercolour on ivorine is to mark out the design with a few pale washes, then to build tone and colour gradually with fine stippling strokes. I generally use a modification of this method – starting with an overall blended wash, then subtracting as well as adding paint to reach the final image. It's always better to paint in thin layers.

Before starting to paint it's important to make sure that the surface of the ivorine is grease-free. I do this by scrubbing the damp surface with a little dishwashing detergent on an old paint brush, then washing off under the tap. Because of the translucency of the surface, it's quite easy to trace through a drawing placed underneath – it's best to draw with a fine brush or to use an aquarelle pencil, (ordinary graphite pencil is slightly greasy and repels the paint). Even when there are washes on it, you can still see the drawing underneath if you put it on a light-box. This is what I do after the initial overall wash has dried, and also to help me put colours in more or less the right place when I'm first floating the wash on. I really enjoy the excitement and immediacy of this stage because everything that follows proceeds at a snail's pace as I try to try to adapt the drawing to fit whatever has happened with the blended colours. All too often I realise that it's a losing battle, so it gets washed off and I start again. At least this is easy with ivorine.

There are a few practical tips to keep in mind.

Leave a border around the painted area to make handling and framing easier. Keep a piece of tracing paper or similar under your painting hand to protect the surface, and always cover the work in progress when you leave it to dry, to avoid dust. A small clear plastic box works well. It's also a good idea to cover your palette and water container for the same reason. If you notice a greasy area which resists paint while you are working, try brushing a small amount of talcum powder over it (when it's dry!) Use an old clean handkerchief (or similar) to dry your brush and wipe off excess paint. Tissues will leave little fibres that contaminate the washes.

The finished painting should be mounted on acid-free paper before being framed, and handled carefully during the framing process. Moisture is the main danger – the painted surface seems fairly durable otherwise. I found this out the hard way when I realised (in the middle of the night) that I had left a folder with two unframed miniatures on the roof of the car when leaving the framer that afternoon. Of course it rained all night, and by the time I found the folder in the car-park it had been run over a few times and I expected the worst. The cardboard folder was falling apart, but luckily the miniatures themselves had been in individual plastic bags, and apart from one small corner where the damp had penetrated, they were undamaged – the plastic bags had tyre marks and gravel rash all over them, but somehow the paintings survived!

Medeleine Szymanski