Earlier this month I took part in the Royal Miniature Society annual exhibition at The Mall Gallery in London. The exhibition is now online and you can view it here
I was thrilled to be awarded full membership (RMS) and received this wonderful news "Due to the exceptional quality and consistency of your work the President and Council members are delighted to grant you full membership".
Also included was a separate exhibition of portrait miniatures from The Granville Family Tree. I was commissioned to paint four miniatures, see below no 2,3, 9 and 10.
This was quite a difficult challenge for me, especially trying to capture the detail on the lace and embroidery details on the ladies dress. Each miniature was a copy of a much larger original painting and we were given a small copy for reference. As you can imagine these paintings have been disseminated over the centuries, it was the desire of present Mr Granville to have a way of exhibiting the family collection as a whole. The commission was carried out by various members of the society over several years and was a huge undertaking.
It was a great pleasure to be invited to a champagne reception hosted by Mr Granville and it was fun to meet the many family members and to hear their stories and memories of the original full sized paintings.
Despite the obvious difficulties I really enjoyed the challenge, sometimes it is good to work outside your comfort zone. It was a mixture of relief and pride to hear that all four paintings met with approval.
