March 19, 2015 – Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art

The Dog of the Day – my nieces lab Reagan with his birthday hat on. Happy Birthday Reagan!! Did I say a yellow lab is much harder to paint than a black one. Especially with a limited gouache palette.

All you need for a black lab is a dark indigo blue for the black with a touch of the English red and a lighter blue and a bit of red for the collar and you gue.

The yellow lab? 😳 So many shades of cream, buff, peach, Browns, purples, greys and white. Red for the tongue and a bit of dark purple.

And ps Azo yellow is NOT a good color for a yellow lab. It’s too lemony and turns him green when mixed with white and painted over the colors I was using. Any blue remotely near it turned it green. 😜 Not so with the Indian yellow which is very strange.

I did use a lot of light purples for the greys.

Background is watered down turquoise.

Thanks for looking!

Sometimes it’s just fun to go sit in the middle of a parking lot and draw the seagulls. No idea why they congregate in the parking lots but they do. If you decide you want to draw seagulls take some crackers or old bread with you. They will follow you like you are the pied piper.

I actually drew a lot of seagulls last week but didn’t get around to painting them till a few days ago. I like this one best. Drawn with Noodler Konrad flex nib and Noodler lexington grey ink in my Stillman and Birn Zeta it’s painted with watery gouache. Much faster than using it opaque. Or at least that’s my story so far.

I have a bunch of premixed greys made from indigo and schminke English red. Sometimes I add more white. Sometimes more indigo. Thee indigo can make a great grey mixed only with the white. Try it. U will love it.

Lettering is done with indigo and a brush. The background is turquoise with bits of green made by mixing Indian yellow in with the turq. That makes a muddy green.

Anyway. Gotta run. My paints are waiting and drying out.

Thanks for looking.