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.

A fern on the path to the cabin. Both of these pictures were taken by setting the end of the iPhone6 down on ground level and clicking away.

Day 287 – Mingus Mill

April 22, 2015April 22, 2015Leave a comment

just before the Oconaluftee Visitors Center in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park .

This statement is wrong : I thought it still was a working mill but the wheel seems to be missing. Did some reading on the Mingus Mill on Wikipedia. There was never a waterwheel but it has some kind of small metal turbine wheel that drives the mill stones. It is still a working mill. It underwent a second restoration in 1968.

You can buy ground corn meal and a t shirt. The money all goes to support the park. It is the only park that doesn’t charge admission so it needs additional funding to help with such programs as fighting the woolie aedelgid which is decimating the Eastern Hemlock. Dead hemlocks parade thru the Appalachians killed by this bug and the park service is engaged in a deadly battle with them treating 5000 infested hemlocks this year alone.

Watercolor in my Stillman and Birn Zeta.

But back to Mingus Mill, a very interesting old building that sits back in the woods. It was restored in 1937. The steps are old mill wheels. The mill race is still gushing with water.

You have to cross a small stream to visit the mill. Very picturesque setting.

Bishops Cap

There are some lovely wildflowers there.

Canadian violets with a wild orchis or orchid near the mill.

The mill painting is painted with the same colors as yesterday’s painting.
Paint the background first. Sky and leaves. Streak in the background trees with soft greys and Blues after it dries. The foreground tree limbs are darker to make the background recede.

Thanks for looking.

Day 286 – The Tree on the Oconaluftee River

April 20, 2015April 21, 2015Leave a comment

My 101st post on my new blog. Loving WordPress. But I digress.

Back to that tree.

I actually let friends in FB and IG vote if I should color this sketch or not. All the votes but one were to color so I did.

This is an old tree on the banks of the Oconaluftee River that runs by the visitors center in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It was drawn with brown de Artrementis Document ink and one of my Noodlers. Love that flex nib. In my Stillman and Birn Zeta.

So here it is done. I started with the background first washing but with cerulean and dabs of spring green and viridian. The trees are all combos of indigo and burnt umber or raw Sienna. I used some leftover greens on the big tree trunk.
Trees in the background are streaks of greys.

The rhododendrons are spring green and ultramarine with indigo for the darks. I used a scraper to regain some of the lost reflections.

Dirt burnt umber and splots of indigo.

The river. Well like the rhododendrons that was a trial too. Splotchy blues and greens. Starting with light blue and darkening it down with darker blue. “Rocks” are indigos and greys. Usually you paint water lighter the farther away you get but I was trying to get down of it foamy hence the lighter areas of color.

Ps white gouache fixed an odd squared off angle on the right side of the legs tree trunk. What was I thinking!?

Thanks for looking.

Day 286 Another Accordion Book

April 19, 2015April 20, 20152 Comments

Sennelier USK journal book.

Kuretake brush pen till it ran out. Then my Pentel brush pen. It was colored with Tombow markers and watercolor and flesh Winsor newton gouache.

TIP: The flesh gouache makes painting skin tones easy! No mixing so no fuss.

This one has been completed since earlier this week. I was saving it for the weekend to post.

Most of it was drawn at the local walking track or dog park.

The stroller was amazingly easy to draw with a brush pen. A few stokes zip zip and done.

The last half was drawn while patting in my car in the Earthfare parking lot starting with the lady in the black and white dress.

Earthfare

The entire strip. About 36″ long. Nice heavy paper. You could draw on the back but you would not have a lot of paper length which is part of what makes these books fun.

Thanks for looking!!

Day 285 – headin home.

April 19, 2015Leave a comment

Hallelujah. I am ready to sleep in my bed.

The park the old cabins the wildlife were charming but it’s zoe time!!!

I have at least ten pages of sketches done however no pics.

So here’s a few of the inner bean. I will be there soon.

Day 284 – powers out!!

April 18, 2015April 18, 20152 Comments

Out riding thru the Cataloochee Valley. Lots of animals. Barns old houses.

Beautiful scenery.

Methodist church Oconoluftee

Preacher man Beau

Chasing elk geese chickens and a turkey or two!

Oconoluftee

The chimneys

Turkey near Sugarlands.

Day 283 – Cataract Falls Part 2

April 16, 2015Leave a comment

These waterfalls are hard to paint. The water doesn’t roar over the black rocks but it trickles. Today with all the rain we have had I bet it’s more than a trickle. All the creeks are roaring filled with water.

This is what it looked like when I left the falls. I did draw it on site. I think there was too much ink on the water to let the white show thru.

This is what it looked like after I added some white gouache. I think it was too thick. So I started to scratch it off.

And this is what it looks like for now. I think I would rather draw the people at the falls than that darn waterfall. But it is a gorgeous spot with an easy walk from the Sugarlands Visitor center.

Schminke gouache Noodler Creeper Ahab caran d’ache in my Stillman and Birn Zeta.

Thanks for looking.