Day 296 – A few Barred Rocks

April 30, 20154 Comments

you know what those are. Chickens. They were so cute and fluffy. Eating constantly. I drove all the way across the Great Smoky National Park just to draw them. Over a huge mountain. I may be in love. There’s just something about these chickens that’s so appealing.

I hear you shaking your head. I used to do the same thing before I started drawing birds. If the cars were all Lapins fault the chickens are all Roz Stendahl’s fault. I want to go to the fair and draw more in the fall!!😳

These were actually drawn as the chickens ran around me at the Oconaluftee Farm. I should have drawn them with black or grey ink but for some reason I drew them with De Artrementis Brown in my Noodler standard flex.

It’s not a good idea to draw in the rain but I did that a lot the week I was in Gatlinburg because it rained almost daily. Thank goodness the ink dries quickly.

They were colored with my Caran d’Ache using the side of the flat end. I decided it was easier and quicker to use them than my watercolors though thinking back I don’t supposed it mattered that much.

I still have two more pages of chickens to color – silver wyandottes a much shyer chicken that ran any time anyone was near it and even worse to color than the barred rocks. I will probably use my watercolor pencils. But these will take a while to color!!

Silver Wyandottes

I also had fun journaling stray thoughts about the chickens as I drew them and later as I colored them.
Hope you enjoy them as much as I do. I need some chickens.

Thanks for looking.

Day 295 – Get Your Inner Jackson Pollock On!!

April 29, 20152 Comments

When I ran across one of my favorite card ever the BMW Z 3 in. The Kroger parking lot I knew I had to draw one more car. I have always convetted this car. And they were made up the road from me in Greer SC. This is painted in my Stillman and Birn Zeta Staedler pen watercolor and gel pen. Bytw the gel pen hates this paper. Very odd.

Chose yellow for the background because they are complimentary colors.

Car #1

This is my friend Marsha’s 1995 Corvette also known as Baby. I drew her three times. Twice before I got her right and a third time just for fun on ledger paper.

Car #1 is obviously awful but I did find the ledger paper interesting so I fluster it again.

I have a whole book of ledger paper. Not one of the old gorgeous books that Lapin loves but one from the 70s I think. Does that make it vintage?!

I have used the paper quite a bit in mixed media and it always gives a fun effect so I thought I would try the corvette on it. After all she’s vintage too.

Car #3

The paper wrinkles. Strike 1. I thought about mounting it on a piece of illo board and I still might. Hopefully that would flatten it out. It also did not allow for the watercolor to be bright. The colors are more delicate on ledger paper an effect that I do like. So will I paint some more on ledger paper. More than likely especially if I can find someone to cut the book in half. It’s a tall narrow book. The other problem with it was that it will take forever to fill it. It’s 252 pages long!!

I did find that the gel pen loved this paper. No idea why but it would go on like butter. It’s not so fond of watercolor papers.

Car #2

This is painted in my Stillman and Birn Zeta. My second attempt. It still has a few problems. The left bumper is off. It should be square and her read end is too long which is why I drew it the third time.

Splattering. Be sure to cover your car when you do the background. Mix up soupy cerulean and yellow ochre and sling it at the paper. Get your inner Jackson Pollock on. So much fun to splatter paint. Just know that it will go everywhere including your phone your ipad and you!

Go forth and look for vintage cars. They are not Ez to find.

Day 294 – homework

April 28, 20154 Comments

I mean cars. Taking a Sketchbookskool class called stretching. This week is Lapins week.

Lapin loves to do urban sketching drawing food people and cars. He even moved from France to Barcelona because there is such an active urban sketching group in Barcelona. How’s that for dedication!?

He also likes to paint in old ledger books. Definitely a different look to that paper. More transparent but that’s for tomorrow.

Stuck getting my Prius first checkup yesterday I drew and painted cars in the dealership. Usually I draw on site and skulk off home to paint at leisure. I used my old Winsor newton field allege and a Cotman pallette I reloaded with all my quinacridones and a Niji water brush. I had never realized that using a waterbrush would make the colors more delicate. Hard to get lots of color with a waterbrush.

The Scion. A sporty model that was on the showroom floor. We drooled over it when I was car shopping last fall but was practical and got a Prius.

Painted with cerulean and burnt umber greys. The windshield is a green blue. Pen is a Staedler in my Stillman and Birn.

Still waiting. One car done so why not draw another?! A big Lincoln SUV was parked right outside the window nearest me. Have you ever tried to paint a white car that is mostly in the shade?! Careful or you get a blue car. 😁 background is cerulean and yellow ochre.

Don’t forget to cover up your car when you splatter the background.

Thanks for looking!

Day 293 – So many sketches

April 27, 2015April 27, 20152 Comments

which should I post?! I have been painting up a storm the last few days and I keep drawing more to paint. Sooner or later I will get them all posted.

I drew the Locks at Savannah Rapida last Thursday when I was at the Savannah Rapids park for The Newcomers Lunch and a talk by the head of the Savannah River Keeper (http://www.savannahriverkeeper.org https://www.facebook.com/savannahriverkeeper) who does her best to keep the Savannah from being the most polluted river in the country instead of the fifth like it is now.

Glad I live above the pollution but both Augusta and Columbia County drink from the pollution as well as dump their waste in it so we can drink it. 😜 The things you learn at lunch.

Drawn in my Stillman and Birn Zeta with my Noodler Creaper Ahab and Carbon Black Ink. Colors. Well just about everything on my pallette but the yellow.

This was painted from background to foreground a cobalt sky and trees painted at one go.

Trees. The greens are yellow ochre or sap green mixed with viridian.

Same mix for the water with more cerulean. But the water was added LAST! Don’t forget to leave the whites. Hard to do!

Greys are mixed with burnt sienna or burnt umber and ultramarine blue. Rust is burnt sienna but you knew that.

Rocks I added yellow ochre to the grey mix.

The locks were painted right before the water.

Gel pen for hand rails. White gouache seemed like too much work!

Thanks for looking.

Day 292 – Inner Bean

April 26, 20152 Comments

I love go sit in the inner bean and sketch the diners but I have never drawn it from this angle before. I say in the middle of the place drawing and nobody noticed me. They were all too busy with their conversations.

There were all kinds of coffee things to draw from this angle. So many cups!!!

I started by drawing the bar and as people filtered in I added them to the scene. Biggest problem is the counter is so high you can’t see the moms and their worker bees fixing coffee and sandwiches and cutting the delicious cakes.

For some strange reason a lot of people were wearing black. It’s spring and it was Friday. Where are the bright colors?! I actually changed some of the black shirts to other colors or it would have been deathly dull.

Noodler creaper Ahab loaded with carbon platinum black in my Stillman and Birn Zeta.

Colors used. Flesh DS Quin Coral and Yellow Ochre

The black – Indigo and Ultramarine Blue With burnt umber added now and then.

Orange or red hair is actually the Quin Coral with yellow added to it.

Otherwise most of the colors were straight off my pallette with little mixing.

Thanks for looking!

Day 292- Inner Bean

April 26, 2015April 26, 20154 Comments

There were all kinds of coffee things to draw from this angle. So many cups!!!

Noodler creaper Ahab loaded with carbon platinum black in my Stillman and Birn Zeta.

Colors used. Flesh DS Quin Coral and Yellow Ochre

The black – Indigo and Ultramarine Blue With burnt umber added now and then.

Orange or red hair is actually the Quin Coral with yellow added to it.

Otherwise most of the colors were straight off my pallette with little mixing.

Thanks for looking!

Day 291 – Saturday in Aiken

April 25, 2015April 26, 20152 Comments

always fun sketching at Al Beyers studio at USC Aiken. Our band of intrepid artists slogged thru the torrential rains for fun and painting in Aiken this morning. Our model was the lovely Alexendra.

Had a tough time drawing her. No idea why because I can accurately knock out quick sketches in minutes.

I also think she needs a good crop but can’t decide quite how.

She’s been through several revisions. This is the current version.

In this one her forearm left arm is too thin. The breast is too flat so I enlarged the breast hoping to make it rounder and raised the upper arm and widened the forearm. I also rounded the hip a bit.

My favorite part of the painting is her right hand. I made it pop forward using negative painting using cerulean and burnt umber.

This is one of the crops I tried. Not loving it.

Painting is done on #140 cheap joes kilimanjaro. I used DS Quin coral with Holbein yellow ochre for the skin tone. Cerulean and burnt sienna make up most of the shadows. The very dark lines delineating the body parts are burnt umber and ultramarine blue.

TIP: One thing I like to do is convert the finished painting to black and white to compare it to the shadows on my original photo also converted to black and white of the model or person I am painting. Converting the original picture allows you to see the darks and lights easily and to not worry about the colors in color photo. The darks and lights are more important than if the eyes are blue or the hair is brown. Most people don’t get the darks dark enough. This way you can.

The darks after I left the life modeling session this morning.

The darks as they are now. Can you tell the difference?!

Thanks for looking.

Day 290 – A Special!

April 24, 20152 Comments

Only ten more days to go til I have posted 300 days in a row. Who would have thought I would get this far. Not me!
You all know I like to draw my lunch breakfast dinner desert. I like to draw food especially if it’s colorful.

The inner bean special
So today I drew my lunch. The inner bean special which I highly recommend. A boarshead turkey blt topped with their homemade ranch dressing on oatmeal bread with a spring green salad and balsamic dressing. Yum I even liked the purple onion and ranch dressing – two things I normally don’t eat.

Drawn in my stillman and Birn Zeta with my Noodler Creaper Ahab with Carbon platinum black Ink. The Noodler flex nib pens are such fun because you can get such a great variety of line with them. They are inexpensive and my favorite pen.

About the painting.

Colors used. Every color on my pallette except viridian and phthalo green.

The sand which was done by brushing it first with a mix of pale yellow ochre and raw Sienna with a tiny bit of indigo. I let it dry and sponged it with a darker version of the same mix at least twice. The edge of the bread is burnt sienna burnt umber and ultramarine blue.

First I washed the salad with a pale green made with sap green and a bit of cobalt. I let that dry and mixed the same colors making a darker green. Last I added cobalt and ultramarine for the dark shadows.

The red in the salad is vermilion. The darker red are done by adding cobalt to the mix.

The walnuts are the same colors as the bread starting light and going darker with each wash adding ultramarine and burnt umber at the last to make the lights pop.

Salad dressing is vermilion with bits of cobalt.

Tea is burnt sienna cobalt and a bit of vermilion to make the purples.

Napkin – burnt sienna and cerulean. One of my favorite greys.

The darkest greys and blacks are made with indigo and burnt umber sometimes with a dash of vermilion.

Vermilion also makes a great purple onion.

I did most of the shadowing with burnt umber and ultramarine blue.

TIP: Shadows are important. The dark shadows serve to make the lights pop.

Can you see where I went back in and added the darker colors in this painting. I think it looks a lot better now. What do you think?

Thanks for looking!

Day 289 – The Walker Sisters Corn Crib

April 23, 2015April 23, 2015Leave a comment

I thought this was the barn. Turns out it is the corn crib. I had been wondering how it protected the mules and the pigs when it got snowed and iced. Evidently there was a barn but the park tore it down or moved it.

The Walker Sisters Corn Crib the old Cedar was there during the sisters lifetime.

These structures were sometimes called “plunder sheds,” as farmers used them to store miscellaneous items such as barbed wire, brooms, firewood, and tools. From Wikipedia The Walker Sisters Cabin. You can read more about it here. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_Sisters_Place

Painting the picture

Drawn sitting on the sisters old log bench in the drizzly rain in my Stillman and Birn Zeta with a Noodler Conrad flex nib pen loaded with Noodler lexington grey ink.

I started with a wash of Sky aka cerulean and trees – spring green and viridian. I let that dry and added the trees in the background with Indigo and raw Sienna in different strengths.

The corn crib was painted with the same colors. Some burnt umber washed over the greys of the building. Also vermilion mixed with indigo.

The dogwood was painted with white gouache. I get to impatient to wait for the masking to dry but I really need to use it. I think for the lacy looking dogwoods it would look better.

The grass really was that bright from all the rain. It was made with spring green or sap green and viridian mixed with some negative painting.
The interior of the cabin. That fireplace had to let out a lot of heat!! I can’t imagine timbering the trees and chopping the wood to keep this fireplace roaring in the cold wintry weather.

Star Chickweed growing on the side of the mountain.

Crested Dwarf Iris a small plant. The photo was take. With the iPhone be 6 resting on the ground.

Another crested dwarf iris. It was a rainy drizzly day. Everything was set including us.

Wild Geranium by the old roadside to the cabin.

Greenbriar School above Metcalf Bottoms. The old school desks and black board are still in it. The cemetery is where the Walker family are buried. The sisters would have walked 2 miles from their cove to attend school or church here. There was a clapboard church built after this school where church was held until the park bought the land and tore down the church. The sisters lived here almost another 40 years with their family and community gone their 120 odd acres of land sold to the park for $4000. They were happy because they still had each other and could stay on their farm. Tough independent ladies.

Thanks for looking.

Day 288 -The Walker Sisters Cabin

April 22, 2015April 23, 20152 Comments

about 2 miles up a mountain and across a stream sits the Walker Sisters Cabin along with several out buildings. The five sisters held a lifetime lease and lived in this two room cabin till their deaths. Their father built the cabin when Abe Lincoln was still practicing law.

The hike up there is lovely with wildflowers on the side of the road but I can’t imagine what it would be like to live so far from civilization. I guess they didn’t go to the store very often!

Four of the five Walker Sisters. From a 1946 Saturday Evening Post article http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/time-stood-still-in-the-smokies-SEP.pdf

Painting the picture

Done in my Stillman and Birn Zeta. Drawn with A Noodler Conrad pen and lexington grey ink in the rainy drizzle.

I started with a wash of Sky aka cerulean and trees – spring green and viridian. I let that dry and added the trees in the background with indigo and a grey made by adding burnt sienna to the indigo. Different strengths of these two colors make the trees recede into the woods.

The cabin was painted with the same colors. Yellow ochre was added on the chimney burnt umber washed over the greys of the cabin.

The dogwood was painted with white gouache. Next time I think I will use some masking on a sponge to do this. I like the look better.

My son crossing the log bridge to the Walker Sisters Cabin
(Painting the picture continued)

The grass was added with the same spring green and viridian as the background just not as diluted. Some negative painting with the darker green was done to make the grass spikes.

A red salamander that was on the foundation rocks of the cabin.