These are some detail shots of a painting I finished just today. Frequently I’ll finish a sketch for a painting then dread painting some aspect of it which I find tricky. Fine lines in particular inspire such a reaction.

I’m really happy with how these lines turned out and it’s a crazy simple thing which did the trick: Tiny little dots.

I painted the lines as usual. That is with a series of cock-ups, rubbing outs, and painting overs. But once I had the basic lines correct I then added tiny white dots to where the highlights would lie and tiny dark dots to the shadows. Now instead of having what looks like exactly what it is – a flat line drawn in watered-down acrylic paint – I have a textured piece of cotton string with 3-dimensionality.

This technique also worked really well for highlighting the rim of the cotton spools.

I’ll be sharing full images of this piece in the coming weeks.