Workshop for Ants: An Introduction to Miniature Watercolor Painting

Have you heard the news? South African artist Lorraine Loots will be traveling to Philadelphia for an exhibition at Paradigm Gallery this summer! While she is here, she will also be offering workshops at Paradigm, starting with this beginner class.

Workshop for Ants: An Introduction to Miniature Watercolor Painting

Date: Thursday, July 31, 2025 • 6:00-9:00pm

Join artist Lorraine Loots as she takes you through every step of her process: learn about the tools you'll need and how to use them, what to consider when choosing a subject, and how to take your own reference pictures using your phone. From there, you will be guided through the process of planning your composition, learning how to use watercolor pencils to create a rough guideline and sketch, how to prepare your palette, and then start the process of layering with color.

Supplies will be provided, no prior experience required.

A miniature wood frame for your newly created miniature artwork will be provided as part of the class fee.

About Lorraine Loots

Lorraine Loots is a South African artist best known for her miniature painting series, 365 Paintings for Ants, launched in 2013. Despite the illustrious career that followed, Lorraine never planned to become an artist: she dropped Art as a subject in high school, stopped painting indefinitely after finishing Art School (Stellenbosch University, 2010) and once again decided not to choose art as a career after completing two post-graduate courses.

Despite her best intentions to the contrary, Lorraine became an artist almost by accident, when her side project – 365 Paintings for Ants – unexpectedly turned into a full-blown occupation. In this series, she set out to paint a miniature every day for an entire year, allowing people to “book” certain dates and thus own the paintings created on these days. The project was met with an astounding international response, prompting her to follow on her first collection with another year-long challenge in 2014, titled ‘365 Postcards for Ants’.

In 2015, the artist launched 100 Paintings for Ants – a similar project, but with a more flexible schedule – which freed up time for a series of international exhibitions, from New York, Los Angeles and Chicago to Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney. In June 2019, Lorraine put on her largest exhibition yet – and her first in London – where she displayed the over 900 miniature paintings she has created over the past 6 years. Loots’ work has been featured on CNN, The Huffington Post, The Daily Mail, Colossal, Buzzfeed, The Evening Standard and Gizmodo among many others, and she currently has an Instagram following of 292,000.