And I know you like I thought they were all called gargoyles. Nope this one is a chimera on Notre Dame in Paris. It’s the companion page to the Notre Dame sketch.
I actually like the journal side of the page a lot. Colors hmm Quin magenta and sienna?! Quin gold and of course Quin sienna and cerulean on the chimera.
Think I will go back and paint the left band cerulean too.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Opposite the Cafe La Pause Beaubourg near the Hôtel de Ville in the Marais. Also down the street from the Pompidou where we had spent the morning.
Absolutely loved the art in the Pompidou. What a massive building. With its insides on the outside odd looking among the late 19th century Hausmann style building. And this day so hot inside. No cold weather when we were in Paris during November. A very muggy 70-80 degrees with 91% humidity. 😳
I was impressed with the great masses of humanity walking the streets of the Marais.
People everywhere and almost to a man or woman dressed in black. Evidently after September one must wear black in France!! And most had their faces down reading their phones.
TIP: I always take a just in case photo of my drawings as I do them. I actually popped the original photo of this into Waterlogue to see what it would do and tried painting it that way. Not easy since the colors in the ap are not normal watercolors. But fun to try.
Colors used!! Painted with my travel pallette. Cerulean, Quin gold and Quin sienna on the buildings. Quin magenta, burnt umber and Inathrodone for the darks and watered down for the side walks and greys.
Red is cad red mixed w Quin coral to brighten it. I was too lazy to go dig up my Quin red. Lol.
A little hookers green and some phtalo blue.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Background 1
I spent most of yesterday repainting the Ilenia’s background. This is the current background and my favorite so far. I also did a lot of work on the bottom background adding alizarin here and there to tie it to the background. Trying to loose some edges and get rid of the pasted on look of the figure bits of the purpley dark was added to her hair to blend it into the background. I had to completely paint out the blue background 2 with titanium white to get rid of the blue and paint the background as it is in the first picture.
The background colors are burnt umber, alizarin and ultramarine blue. I also added touches of burnt sienna and yellow ochre. It always seems that I scumble backgrounds a lot. And of course some of it was just painted with a sable paint brush which gives a smoother finish than the hog bristle that I used for scumbling.
Background 2
I thought I would like this color better than I did. It’s cerulean, nickel azo and titanium painted over background 3 which is really the first background I tried out and another I usually like. I thought it was too over powering.
Background 3
Burnt umber and ultramarine blue with some nickel azo over brushed or scumbled over the darker colors.
TIP: if you get tired of getting up and walking back from your painting to look at it you cab use your home.
Here are a few other versions of background 1.
So my question dear readers is WHICH do you like? As I said so far background 1 is my favorite.
Thanks for reading!
Margaret who is off to class to make great art tomorrow. Xxx
Ilenia after about an hour and a half of painting. Acrylic 30×36 hardboard panel
Always a fun weekly event.
I thought she was going well for working in the dark. For some brilliant reason I had my easel turned AWAY from the light. Maybe because we breeze in right before start time. Hopefully next time I will set it up right.
Obvious problem was the bottom leg was too long. Her knee sticks out to far. I think that was due to slight shifts in the pose during breaks. Hard to resume the exact pose every time.
Here she is now. Knee shortened. Top hip lengthened a bit on the left. All that foreshortening is such a pain.
The background needs more work. The brown is too dark and those triangles at her feet need to go! 😳
Hard to paint such a big piece in a few hours. I think I have about five hours in it now. Dos I say I use big brushes.
Ilenia by Al Beyer – oil – at least 3×4′
This is Al Beyer’s aka painting. He was painting a few feet to my left. Always interesting to see how he goes about painting the model.
And how different the model looks just a few feet to my right or left. Al to my left barely saw her head.
Lee drawing on my right had her full profile whereas I barely saw her nose.
Als after two hour session which is really an hour and a half or so.
Colors used: all golden or liquitex -titanium white, nickel Azo gold, pyrrole red, cad yellow, ultramarine blue, burnt umber, alizarin Crimson. I buy artist grade but whichever is cheaper or the color I like better.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
What do you do with all thosepostcards you pick up on your travels!? Mine usually stay in a cubby hole in the desk til I have a clean up and toss them.
Sad to say I the only thing I bought for this book was the Eiffel Tower on the front when we were in Les Andelys and of course the postcards.
I collected a lot of ephemera like the items on the back. I have two bags full. I needed a map for the accordion part of the book. Did I bring ONE map back. Not a one.
Luckily I found some copyright free maps on the internet and printed it out. I printed several but only used this one.
The accordion was also made from the map.
Here’s a shot of the book with the accordion extended. Each postcard is backed with vellum so that you can journal on it about your trip. Thinking I may glue some more of my ephemera in it.
I have a large bag of stamps left from when I did a lot of mixed media. Could I find it?! After hours of looking I did and NOT ONE French stamp. Finally I did yesterday morning. An hour and a half of going thru the bag – stamp by stamp – I finally found about a dozen. I actually had separated them back when I got them but put them in with the Italian stamps.
I had several that were larger than the rest and wanted to use them anyway so I cut them down and mounted them on some paper that I already had. Since of course I now had a surplus of stamps I had to add a few to these pages.
This is the book that has the directions for the accordion postcard book. Fairly easy to make. And only took about five hours to assemble.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Ok so it’s not really pink. I just like the way the alizarin looked. All yellow ochre was oh so boring. Cerulean and some Quin sienna in the shadows.
Drawn with a sputtering skipping Noodler Ahab. I bought a new one because my beloved old standby was leaking. This one is worse than the first one. Going to get the leaky one out and put in some new seals. Maybe that will fix it.
Anyway. Got to knit the yahd guy a hat so he won’t freeze in this lovely cold snap.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
A slick restaurant around the corner from our hotel. It means Beed on the Roof. Delicious food. Glad I finally got this one painted.
I used lots of Quin gold, also Quin sienna and Phthalo blue. Quin coral. Grey hair is burnt sienna and cerulean.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Do you like it better with the red Moulin Rouge or all ink?!
I really have to quit drawing these in my sketchbook. Somebody is already asked to buy it or a print. So now I have to draw it over. WHY do I do these things?!
Carbon pen with carbon platinum ink. Great fine point pen but sometimes it leaks BLOBS On your just drawn paintings. Sigh. BIG blobs.
I have a French Seine riverbank landscape I was working on yesterday. Yes. You guessed it. BIG BLACK blob. No warning.
It also leaks into the cap which can cause problems. Sigh. What’s a girl to do?!
I know. White out?! 😜
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Main and Broad in Brevard. I think it’s the town hall or the court house?! Watercolor, Noodler Konrad w D’artrementis Document Brown in strathmore Mixed Media 500 sketchbook.
I drew this sitting out near O P Taylors on Broad which has a good view of the court house.
The tree and building were still decorated for Christmas. I love that people no longer zip the decorations into storage the day after Christmas.
A great view of the mountains as Broad Street drops off toward Asheville.
My biggest dislike about the Strathmore Mixed Media 500 journal is that it’s very difficult to make lay down flat giving a large shadow down the spine. Not very attractive in the middle of a painting!
I guess I need to flatten it on the scanner but so much easier to use the cellphone for a quick pic.
Colors used. Cerulean sky w a touch of cobalt. Red w yellow ochre for brick colors. Burnt umber and Inathrodone for shadows, roofs, truck and street. Hookers green w Inathrodone for the for tree.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx who is off to the Columbia Art Museum for the Georgia O’Keefe exhibit.
Out the Back door. Watercolor, Noodler Konrad w D’artrementis Document Brown in strathmore Mixed Media 500 sketchbook. .
Spent the last week in Sapphire Valley at my sons trout farm that he bought last fall. A truly lovely spot. I sketched this as I sat on the back deck on one of the few sunny days we had.
The Thompson River, a trout river, runs through the property with at least two waterfalls. When you fall asleep at night you can here the river rushing by. It’s surrounded by stands of hard woods and pine trees.
This was painted with my whisky painters watercolor box and waterbrushes.
Colors used. Cerulean sky. Grey is Inathrodone and burnt umber with touches of hooker green for the moss on the trees. River. Hookers, cerulean and yellow ocher.
Rhododendrons hookers and cad yellow.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art 
