Day 255 – Dinosaur time

March 16, 20152 Comments

It’s a lot of fun to draw dinosaurs. I bought this one recently at Target but I hear I need to start checking goodwill and you consignments for them. I now have four of them as well as a few other animals.

My grandson loves dinosaurs and trucks. This is a postcard on watercolor paper for him. Next time I think I will let him paint it after I give him some paints. In the meantime I painted it with my caran d’ache since I didn’t feel like getting out the watercolors.

Added bonus I found two contests to enter it in on Instagram. Who knew they have dino drawing contests on IG?!

Here it is just done with my Noodler Creaper Ahab with carbon Platinum black ink. It’s about 6×8 on #140 kilimanjaro from cheap joes.

Thanks for looking.

Day 254 – Sunday!!

March 15, 2015March 16, 20152 Comments

Sundays I like to watch CBS Sunday Morning and Super Soul Sunday but not today. Zoe sat down next to me and she was watching to see what I was doing. And I thought “What a great painting she would make! so I took a photo of her.

And then of course I drew her. If I had drawn her from life she would have gotten on the back of the sofa and turned her back to me before I was done drawing her.

Zoe version 4. I realized she was way to fat In the last photo so I put her on an instant diet. I think she is done I hope she is done. She lost an inch in about a half an hour. Best diet ever. But who knows?!😃 in the morning she may need something else done. Stillman and birn zeta gouache Kuratake ink pen. #drawyourdog

She went they several stages. This is the finished one. Well you never know I may change her again. Zoe is done in schminke gouache and with my Kuretake brush pen in my Stillman & Burn Zeta. I had thought she was done twice before.

This was the first time I thought she was done. Till I realized her back should be curved and NOT straight. OOPS!! I did like the odd wonkiness to her face. More on that in a minute.

Here she is with her back curved the right way. I thought she was done for about a minute till I realized I needed to add some white to the Mohawk down her spine to make it look fluffier. Back to the gouache.

So here Zoe is with white hairs added to her Mohawk. Then I realized her nose was a twitch off as was her right eye. I got my #2 Isabey out. It’s a lovely sable brush that will point like no other. I started adding bits of fine hair here and there on her face with white and caramel colors on her darker bits. I used indigo around her nose mixed with a bit of Sienna for blacks and greys. I also added some whiskers.

Thanks for looking!!!

Day 253 – It’s Saturday

March 15, 2015March 15, 2015Leave a comment

so it’s time to go to life modeling. Erica was our model and she always does a great job. She’s a lovely girl who is great fun. I had to bake her some cheese crackers because she missed them last time I made some a few weeks ago. So the rest of the group all got some too. Anyway I used the caran d’ache and kilimanjaro paper and a lot of paper.

I blocked her in with the yellow ochre crayon. Then I checked her measurements. They were right! Sometimes things just work. Sometimes they don’t. This time they did.

I used the plumb lines like Roz Stendahl talked about in Sketchbookskool to check hand and arm placement as well as her ear. Only her ear was off. Miracles do happen – or maybe it’s practice.

And I had great fun laying on the colors and then spraying them with a very fine mister. Love to let the caran d’ache drip. I am finally learning to control the dripping somewhat. To keep it from running so much. There are two things you can do. Lay the board down and it will not run as much OR mop it up before it runs. Once it starts running it usually stains the paper and you loose your whites. I also like rubbing it out with either a damp bounty paper towel or my dads old hog bristle grumbacher filbert.

If I remember next time I think I will draw her with the flesh colored crayon because I do not like the way the yellow ochre shows thru the background blue and makes an icky green. Of course I will probably forget I like that yellow ochre crayon!

I think her head went well. It looks like Erica. It’s very hard to get detailed with the caran d’ache which gives it a dreamy look. It also causes you to loose the whites easily like between her hands.

I had intended to finish her hands at home because I knew she would move them when she got back into her pose after the first break. Models always do. Instead I ran a few errands and came home and took a good long nap.

Hopefully I will finish her tonite or tomorrow.

Thanks for looking!

Day 252 – Those Beards!!!

March 13, 2015March 13, 2015Leave a comment

I must be feeling better because last nite I decided to draw Matthew Perry with his scruffy beard last night a la Roz Stendahl who posted guys with beards lol last week on her blog. I took a pic of him on his show Odd Couple. And that was it.

Then I drew my son Ben who has been known to sport lots of chin hair of all kinds. They were going so well that I did a third one.

Have always lived Jonny Lee Miller since I saw him in a Jane Austen movie. Combine him with Sherlock and some chin hair. I had to try. I will say I am not as pleased with him as the first two.

What was the quote on Matthew Perry. Ideas at 3 am might not be so great.Well neither are they at 11 pm when I did Johnny!! But they were a lot of fun. So much that when I met my friend Marsha at Waffle House I kept sneaking photos of guys with beards. They were everywhere.

So how did I do these? I found that the easiest way to do these was with the Pentel color brush. It’s easy to lighten and move the ink to shade with it. Then I went back in with my Pentel brush own to finish it off. The background was done with gouache. Lettering with the Pentel brush pen.

Bytw my son thinks I should do a graphic novel so I guess he linked his. He loves graphic novels and comic books.

A lot of fun. Bet you can’t do just one!!

Day 251 – The Brown Thrasher

March 12, 20152 Comments

i had three other things I meant to be working on today instead I drew more birds?! I have had a touch of bronchitis and was sitting on the den sofa feeling bad. I glanced out the window to see a huge brown bird on the back deck. He was at least five times as big as any bird out there. Thrashers are ground dwellers and I had only seen one once before on the deck though I see them in the yard a lot.

And my sketchbook was in my purse so I grabbed a nearby piece of paper so as not to scare the bird off.

I drew a few quick sketches before he flew off.

Using my noodoee flex oen and De Artremis brown document ink I redrew him in my S&B Zeta and added another from memory. Then I painted them with gouache. I used English red, indigo, white and yellow Schminke. The best discovery I had today was that a filbert makes a great comma stroke. I used it to make all the brown marks on his chest.

Thanks for looking!!

Day 250 – A Painted Collage

March 11, 2015March 11, 20152 Comments

Our art group took a paper collage class from the very talented Virginia Bojanowski. I painted one of my favorite subjects my sweet dog Zoe.

Zoe
5″x7″

Made from painted scraps of paper and old book paper.

The following is a short version of how it was made. Of course Ginnie had bags of already painted stamped paper pieces that we could use to collage with or we would have been there for days!! You could substitute any appropriately colored paper for the painted paper we used.

First we drew our subject on the canvas. Usually a piece of 1/2″ or 3/4″ plywood is used for this but for expediency sake we used a canvas.

Next we painted the background color. After it was dry we stamped over it with a stamp. I used a marble texture stamp.

Then we painted our subject in blocky colors.

Last using gel medium we glued down many pieces of paper starting with the bottom layer to the top aka from her chest to scarf to ears, to dark side of head, to eyes, eyebrows, nose trying to get a 3 d effect. Difficult to do on such a tiny piece of canvas ripping even tinier bits of paper.

In Art 130 at UGA we had to copy an Old Master print assigned to us by our teacher. I got an A+ but my rooms floor was littered with piles of pieces of Life magazine photos trying to match the exact colors. My poor roommate.

Art 130 was a Josef Albers color theory class, a fascinating class and my favorite that year.

Let us know if you want your favorite animal done!!

Anyway thanks for looking!!!

Day 249 -More birds

March 10, 20152 Comments

This is a leftover bit of Sketchbookskool homework I just finished up. One of Cathy Johnson’s assignments was bird drawing. I seem to have gotten stuck there. This is done with caran d’ache watercolor crayons in my Stillman and Birn zeta.

The Stillman and Birn Zeta rivals Strathmore 500 Mixed Media art journals for great paper to work on. It’s much whiter and about the same price. Only problem. I have to get them in Atlanta. Sigh. Nowhere to be bought in Augusta Ga. I can get the Strathmore at Michaels and Hobby Lobby.

Cardinals frequent my feeder and are a big favorite of mine and most other backyard birders. The males that visit my feeder are more salmon colored than red.

Background cerulean, pen is a Noodler flex pen loaded with de Atremis brown document. I love that color! Double lines done with my sepia brown Pitt pen. And for once no mistake to cover up with the ledger paper. I just thought it would be a nice addition. I did want to add Washi take but couldn’t find any the right size or color so NO Washi tape.

Thanks for looking!!

Thanks for looking.

Day 248 – Another flock of gulls

March 9, 2015March 9, 2015Leave a comment

The gulls were in the Target Evans parking lot when I drew them. I did paint them at home.

Thinking about writting 50 shades of grey on this one because I have made that many shades of grey today. No matter how light it was the gouache always dried darker.

Hmm. Grey is made from schminke indigo Quin Violet and English red a sort of burnt sienna. I did use some cad yellow and white. A lot of white!!! Background is cad yellow and turquoise.

There’s only one bird I don’t like after two plus hours of painting. his bill is kind of yellow green. I still have one more page of gulls to draw.

I think he’s my favorite.

But it could be him OR

These two!!

Thanks for looking. Check back tomorrow. Hopefully time to make progress on them.

Day 247 – A Little Breakfast

March 8, 2015March 8, 2015Leave a comment

I think this should be called brunch because it never gets eaten at breakfast time.

Made up for not not writing on the chicken. I wrote all over this one. I used a B and a F sepia pitt pen. Also used schminke gouache my new way to fix my myriad mistakes. It does so well covering them up. The cup was drawn so far to the right in ink that I had to move it over to get the handle on it. It has such a nice pulled handle. Both the cup and bowl were made by my favorite local potter Dave Stewart of Wild Hare pottery.

I also had to paint the whole background. Boring to me with just the white paper.

Remember when doing stripes on the tablecloth they are darker closer and lighten up as the recede. It also gets a little greyer.

TIP: To get really white gouache highlights load the SIDE of a rigger brush and touch it sideways to the painting.

Thanks for looking!!

Gouache colors used white turquoise, Quin Violet, pyrrole red, Azo yellow, and indigo.

Day 246 Life Drawing

March 7, 2015March 7, 2015Leave a comment

Today we drew the lovely Amy. I was using Caran d’arch on 140# Kilimanjaro. Today was her fortieth birthday So HAPPY Birthday Amy.

I started by drawing her first in with a yellow ochre caran d’ache crayon. I had actually brought my watercolor pencils to give them a go starting the picture but instead I grabbed the crayon and off I went.

After I blocked in her head and measured her shoulders I just started adding colors. Most of her face was in heavy shadow.I probably should lighten the shadow under her nose and chin…looks like a goatee lol…BUT OH well..its a sketch and its DONE! I should have followed Charles Reid Iconic Rule NEVER use anything darker than burnt sienna on a younger face…I used Burnt Umber…DUH!!

It would be easy enough to fix. Just wet it down and wipe it off with a piece of bounty paper towel and recolor it with burnt sienna. MAYBE tomorrow or MAYBE NOT!! Thinking NOT!!

She has beautiful red hair. A darkish auburn. I didnt have anything remotely resembling her hair color so I added some dark pink to the burnt sienna…even if it wasnt the right color it was fun!! A girl needs her pink!

This is Amy after the first half an hour of drawing. Notice NO burnt umber under her lip.

SO I guilted myself into getting up and lightening up the shadow on her face. I do have to say that its MUCH easier to lift color off the Fabriano coldpress than off the Kilimanjaro. I scurbbed it a little with my hogbristle brush and then added some flesh color to lighten it up. The caran d’ache are really like a cross between pastels and watercolor.They tend to be a little more opaque than the watercolors I usually use which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what you are doing. I also added more highlights to her face. Now I really am calling her done.

I finished Amy about half way thru the second half hour session so I turned the board over and started playing with color on the other side. I sprayed it alot with water and had fun letting her drip. Added pinks to the ultramarine blues I was using.

This is my favorite part of this sketch…arent the colors just gorgeous?? This is her tummy and her belly button in case you didnt know!!

The model Amy actually bought this one from me…THANKS AMY!!!

ANYWAY, Caran d’ache are ALOT of fun…go get a small box and have fun drawing. They keep you from getting too tight. Add in a spray bottle and it will produce some of the most delicious drips you have ever seen.

Thanks for looking!