Nan's dressing table jar

During my stay at Chester we had an arty session and Mum selected an interesting subject for me, a pale blue jar from Nan’s dressing table set.  The jar’s faceted sides created interesting reflections and I quickly put pencil to paper knowing I would be taking some time with this subject.  Mum started on her own subject, a wooden yacht with copper sails and the afternoon passed by very quickly.  A bit too quickly in fact because at 10 to 5 we realised tea might be a little late!  As we finished I remarked the little glass jar would make a good watercolour and so that’s what I’ve done.   I took some photo’s along the way so that if it turned out I could put it on Squirrel and Stitch, if it hadn’t turned out you wouldn’t be reading this!

The little jar was a joy to paint and the photo's show the development of the picture. 

The original pencil drawing which I used as a reference.

  

The pencil outline, I have found the best way to produce the outline without causing any damage to the watercolour paper is to draw it on a sketchpad and trace it.  At this stage I had also preserved some white areas with masking fluid using the very fine Cotman paintbrush I bought at Chester.  I protected it with a coating of soap and found the masking fluid rinsed off quite easily.

The base layer, a mix of phthalo blue and prussian blue which gave me a background for the reflections.

Working from one area to the next I drew in the reflections in pencil before lovingly applying the paint with some fine brushes.

The finished painting.