Day 431 – Two point perspective Trick(TIP)

September 13, 2015September 13, 20151 Comment

is tough to say the least. And mine was confused on this painting. The bricks were off especially above his head. Oops!!

Al Beyer showed me a technique that is easy to do when you have two point perspective, i.e. perspective with two vanishing points.

The vanishing points are to the right and left of the painting on the horizon line which runs across the top of the OPEN letters.

ALL parallel lines should converge at the vanishing point. The runs of bricks make up these parallel lines as do the top and bottom of the window and the bottom of the OPEN letters.

So how to get them done correctly.

Get a piece of paper. Lay the straight edge along the horizon line. Then fold the bottom edge up to follow parallel line. I chose the window sill.

This is the order you fold the paper in.

Match 1 to the horizon line to get fold 2. Of course you can’t see 1 now!!

Here it is on the painting.

Make fold 3 by matching up fold 2 with the horizon line.

Then make fold 4 by folding the paper in half between the bottom fold and the #2 fold.

Ideally before you paint match the horizon line on your folded paper with the horizon line on the painting draw along the folds with a watercolor pencil to transfer the lines to your painting.

Flip the paper with the horizon line on the bottom edge to get the top lines.

Some thinking is required. And the whole thing reverses on the right side to complicate your life. 😳

What you end up with looks like this. The lines were drawn with a brown watercolor pencil. The horizon line comes off of his shoulder.

Let me know if you have more questions. I will try to answer them. Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day430- Food Food Food!!!

September 12, 2015Leave a comment

We ate at Taj of India the other day. I actually liked the sexond sketxh best til I painted them. Guess which one I like best now?!!funny how things change. I had trouble with my pentel brush running on this paper so I never painted the cerulean around the name of the restaurant. I read somewhere recently that the Pentel brush pen will sometimes run on certain paper. Guess I hit the jackpot on this one. Strathmore mixed media paper. Usually it behaves but I do have two brush pens. I may have used the Kuretake with carbon platinum black on the second one. No runny problems on it. You have to love that carbon platinum black. NEVER runs.

My favorite dish was mine. The chicken tiki Marsala. It was painted with cad red then Quin gold. Last I added touches of green apatite to the bowl. Lots of wet on wet. The same colors were used on the kuchumba just watery. Quin gold and Inathridone on the rice. I actually used most of the same colors on all the dishes just in different variety.

Having never been to Taj of India before I was hoping for an exotic interior. But no. Gold walls with one lonely wall hanging and an alcove. However there was a birthday party in progress having a good time. The odd waiter who had hair like a rasta was added for some variety. His hair and huge beard were red and black. Very odd. He was a really sweet guy and kept the water glasses full. Good idea since the food was spicy. Not a spicy food eater.

Skin tone – Quin red and yellow ochre. Burnt sienna for shadows sometimes with a touch of cerulean.

Greys and darks. Made with Cerulean and burnt umber or burnt umber and ultramarine blue. Test them for a great variety of greys blacks and Browns.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 429 – heading to Tybee

September 11, 2015September 11, 20155 Comments

With sketchbook in hand and hoping for some more bodies that scream sketch me.

Or at least some great photos to paint but no sunburn like I got when I did this one at Garden City Beach a month ago.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 428 Busy as a bee

September 11, 2015September 11, 20152 Comments

Day 1 at the dog park. I hated this one but now I think I like it because of all the people and all the dogs.

The seat on the right was completely misdrawn. And I tried to correct it. I had run out of room for the people OPPS.

This group is my favorite part. Lots of dogs, lots of people. I sit in my car in the parking lot and try to catch the people and dogs before they move. I used a Noodler Creaper pen and de artrementis document brown ink.

The bench was painted with Daniel smith green apatite which granulates and Inathradone with a touch of burnt umber. All painted wet on wet. The bushes were painted like the background in Monday’s post though I didn’t take as long.

I did this one today. There was only one dog in the whole park!? And three people. Wonder where the other dogs were.

These were drawn yesterday or the day before. The tall guy stood there right until I started to draw him and then he walked off. Same thing happened with the lady. Before that they had a BIG conversation.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 427 At It Again

September 9, 2015Leave a comment

Like the way he’s going so far. This is a LARGE watercolor. A few problems on the two point perspective that need to be straightened out tomorrow or Friday. Will share how it’s done when I do it.

Really like the way the reflections on the window are coming along. I tried to keep some white and light reflection areas. But first those letters need to be in perspective.

But today I am cleaning up my paintbrushes till the am!!

Thanks for reading

Margaret ️xxx

Day 426 Costco

September 8, 20152 Comments

Last week I sat in the corner at Costco’ s cafe area drawing the lunch crowd. There’s one table that has a 180 view and SCORE. I hid behind my purse.

I really like the way the wall of boxes turned out in the background. And the way most of the people turned out. I actually painted out one guy whose drawing went astray. Can you find him!?

It was also hard getting all the bodies with legs as they came and went.

Next time I will draw something easy like my polish sausage and the drink.

This should be a fun place for urban sketching. Or at least getting pics of the roustabouts working. Check their webpage for when they visit near you.

Thanks for reading. Class tomorrow. Busy day!!

Margaret xxx

Day 425 -a Tutorial – That bacKgRouD

September 7, 2015September 7, 2015Leave a comment

Ilenia Kilimanjaro #140 cold pressed 22×30 -for sale email me at m c m h u n t @ me.c o m of you need her.

Or how many ways can you spell disaster?! Disasters are hard to fix when you paint with watercolor but sometimes you can if you are patient.

Yesterday I said I would post how I did the backgrounds on these two paintings of Ilenia. It involves ALOT of water and dripping paint.
Ilenia Fabriano #140 cold pressed 12x 18-for sale email me at m c m h u n t @ me.c o m of you need her.

This was the background originally on last weeks painting. What was I thinking?!

Try lifting color next time you have a disaster. If it’s cold pressed paper you can lift the color. Some paper does it better than others. Fabriano does it best. The cheapest source of fabriano I have found is Cheap Joes. Cheap Joes Kilimanjaro also does a good job of lifting though not as good a job as Fabriano.

Don’t forget Hot Press papers will not lift at all. Worst ever including my beloved Fabriano. I once mixed up some hot press fabriano with my cold press and used it accidently. How many ways can you spell disaster?!

This is basically how I did the backgrounds in the pictures. You may have to repeat the steps. hookers green size 12 sable legend I had the same reaction to that hookers green in this weeks paintings background. What was I thinking. Even worse the green is staining so I had to use other colors to get rid of it.

Blotting off that Ick green.

So how to do that? First how I arrived at the background.

Adding more water to lift the paint.

More blotting with Kleenex. No puffs allowed. They have lanolin on them.

Adding yellow ochre to kill the green.

And a little burnt umber.

Splattering soupy burnt sienna with my Legend 12 sable.

The spatters melt out because the paint is wet.

Then I repeat the above steps blotting off color and adding more til I like it.

Now what did I do to get rid of this too dark color. I hit it with the spray bottle, let it sit a few minutes and started blotting it off with Kleenex or paper towel. It gets to be a drippy mess and it usually ends up on the floor.

And it ended like this. I did splatter the background again. I think the colts I used were alizarin, mineral Violet, burnt sienna, Inathradone blue and cobalt.

Ps don’t forget to wipe the drips off the floor before you track them everywhere.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 424 – Yes it’s SuNdAy!!!

September 6, 2015September 6, 2015Leave a comment

Ilenia full sheet 22x 30″ 140# Kilimanjaro for sale. Email me at m c m h u n t @ me.co m if she needs to come live with you.

As you may know I usually post the life modeling session on Saturday but Miss Ilenia was misbehaving. Or maybe it was the painter?! 😳

Before I start wanted to remind you that if you haven’t seen Mr Yow doing Chinese painting on my Facebook wall you should. It’s only 4 minutes. https://m.facebook.com/MargaretMccarthyHunt?ref=bookmarks

I am going to make a mental checklist or maybe I should write it down to review before I start painting. Meditate on it. Put it under my pillow and sleep on it. Put it on the bathroom mirror.

She was drawn with a #4 Isabey sable watercolor brush w a grey that was mixed with everything in the corners of my palette. Twenty minutes sketching. When you use a paintbrush on watercolor paper you have to think about where each line goes. Trying for no do overs.

ChEcKlIsT:

No head smaller than 4″ EvEr!!

Shoulders even?!

Arms the right length?!

Eat in the right position?!

Start painting on the face first. (The face makes me nervous so I tend to start on it after I do the body. NOT good because in a two hour drawing session I run out of time. Since I tend to slap paint on when I get in a hurry guess what I do?! Not a good look on a face!! )

And last shadows even across the face?? (Aka shadows on face should NOT Be darker than the body. Gives a beard effect. Not good on a pretty young girl!!!)

Ps only use burnt sienna and cerulean on a young girls face or the shadows get too heavy. Charles Reids rule and he is THE Master!! Www.charlesreidart.com

The first forty minutes including sketching. A Quin coral and french ochre wash. Both are transparent. Raw Sienna and cerulean shadows.

Next forty minutes. Mistake number one on the face. Eyebrow and eye too dark and heavy. She had dark eyes but using burnt inner and ultramarine made them TOO dark. Next time repeat the mantra burnt sienna and cerulean only. The eyebrow is too long too. No shadows Around the eye make them look pasted on.

Also lost the edges of the back of her hair so she would not look cut out and glued down. It makes your eye look at her face not her hair.

After Life modeling. Two hours. I put her down in the parking lot and took her pic in the noonday sun.

She needs some background to make her PPP. I chose green because it’s the opposite of pink or red. But oh my gosh what’s wrong with that face?!

Lots of minor things. Eat was a little low. The mouth too down turned. The eye shape off. Forehead a hair too narrow and TOO round. Otherwise she was looking great.

After a lot of twitching around I am happy with her. Shoot me an email if she needs to come live at your house!!

Now my biggest question is crop closer or leave full sheet?! Leaning toward the cropped version. It follows the rules of thirds and I like it best. Which one do you like best?!

Tomorrow will tell you how I did the background. It too was rough for a while but really like it ALOT now.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 423 – A Demo

September 5, 2015September 5, 20158 Comments

We had the pleasure of watching Mr Yow of Northern China an acclaimed artist of the Lu Chin school do a demo and explain what his paintings mean last Wednesday.

I have three videos of him painting the horse but I Can NOT upload them to WordPress. I will be uploading them to my Facebook business page where you can see them at https://m.facebook.com/MargaretMccarthyHunt?ref=bookmarks

It was fascinating to see him paint. This took four minutes for him to paint.

Thru an interpreter he explained that he ponders his subject for a few days and then paints it quickly with a large chinese ink brush and ink on rice paper which he ripped off a large roll.

In China they do not have watercolors or pencils – only ink. So all drawing, painting, and writing are done with ink.

Also different artists specialize in one area. His is the horse. One artist specializes in shrimp painting. Really!!

The calligraphy is actually a poem that tells explains how he feels about the painting.

This is the granddaughter he hopes to have one day. The calligraphy tells that story of his hopes for his granddaughter.

All Chinese children grow up doing calligraphy with a brush in school.
He also said that the chop, the red squares, can be a name, a nickname or something else.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 422?? Painting

September 4, 2015September 4, 2015Leave a comment

Update. Painted for a couple more hours.

So far

This painting had been fermenting in my brain all week. And really ever since I saw it. Love the grunge look of it.

And always liked this photo of my middle son. I started over for two reasons. The first one was on 140# and he had no feet. This is on a full sheet Crescent watercolor board. Heavy stuff.

The feet thing did it for me. Lol. Do over. He needed feet. And I had trouble with his head. Still too big. As I said on my fb wall watercolor is a roll of the die. Sometimes you win sometimes not. Like the new one better anyway.

Here’s the sketch of it. All those grey lines worried me. Hard to have transparent color and those lines not show. I think they are going away. I HOPE.

The face was a hash of lines.

Professor wants you to paint the drawing with a brush. 😳 I don’t know any WC people who do that but I was game to try.

I did draw a little with a grey watercolor pencil because toooo many grey WC lines. I erased all the grey lines I could with my moo erasure from cheap joes. We love our moo erasures.