Day 1100 A big number!!

July 30, 2017July 30, 2017Leave a comment

When I started this new blog I thought I would try to make 50 days of daily blogging and here we are at day 1100. Who knew. As Wayne Dyer said anything is possible if you do it one small piece at a time.

20 minute sketches. The last of the dr Sketchys really liked the wings. Great fun to draw. The flowers NOT so much fun to paint. Jessie was some kind of woodland fairy. I think. She held the pose rock steady for 20 minutes which after 2 1/2 hrs of paint is no easy thing to do.

Bytw I set the sketchbook up vertically while I drew and painted these. Anymore I almost can't paint or draw on a flat level
Surface. Strange but true. It feels odd. Time was short so these are all alla prima
Paintings. Love the way the darks in her legs and wings blended themselves.

Like Charles Reid says it's 50% you 50% the watercolor.

10×14 superaquabee sketch book which loves pentel brush pen and watercolor alike. Winsor Newton travel palette watercolors and all the Daniel Smith quinacridones. #10 DaVinci Kolinsky Sable.

Ttyl time to play with the grandkids. Hugs. Margaret in Atlanta xoxoxoxo

Day 1099 Moh Dr S

July 30, 2017Leave a comment

15 minute sketches. I think I would do better if I used a timer all the time. The mask has black wink of Stella glitter brush pen on it and the necklace gold wink of Stella.

Done in a superaquabee tablet 10×14 or 16. W pentel brush pen and winsor newton travel palette colors plus all the Daniel smith quinacridones.

Day 1098 More Dr Sketchys

July 28, 20172 Comments

Ten minutes

Five minutes

Five or Ten minutes. Add texture contest which I won. The feather is done with glitter pens.

A contest. Add a beast to a sketch. Added the Chat Noir cat. Kinda wished I hadn't. Liked it better before oh well. Always another sketch. 10 min then 10 more to add the cat. I think. Mask is done with wink of Stella glitter pens.

Done in a superaquabee tablet 10×14 or 16. W pentwl brush pen and winsor newton travel palette colors plus all the Daniel smith quinacridones.
Ttyl off to run errands in Atlanta
Margaret xoxoxox

Day 1097 Two minute sketches at Dr Sketchys

July 27, 2017July 28, 2017Leave a comment

and one five minutes. Done in a superaquabee tablet 10×14 or 16. W pentel brush pen and winsor newton travel palette colors plus all the Daniel smith quinacridones. Jessie Harding was an awesome model. She held the poses like a rock. And they were always interesting. Our new MC was terrofci too. Soooo funny.
Five minute pose. Off to Atlanta. More tomorrow. I did a dozen sketches and watercolors. No wonder I wiz tahred.

Day 1096 Those Dogs

July 26, 20174 Comments

Last page in this sketchbook. Hurrah. So I decided to draw another page of Zoe.

Zoe is always up for a modeling job. She's cheap. She works for treats! She is NOT good at holding a pose. Her ears are always listening. Rotating line radar to see what you are doing.

I really like the way this head turned out. Both the sketch and the watercolor.

This is my second favorite head. I was drawing fast.

I still had not filled up my pens and reached into my purse to see what I had. Pulled out a 6B Charcoal pencil and drew with it.

After I painted her I set the charcoal with fixative. So far it seems to not be smearing. Cross your fingers.

Strathmore 400 sketchbook. Colors used. Quin burnt sienna cerulean cobalt Andrews Turquoise.

Ttyl Margaret xoxoxox

Day 1095 My Flabrador

July 25, 2017Leave a comment

My sweet flabrador Honey. She's fat as a butterball. She's very fond of food especially bread and cookies. Pumpkin pie. NEVER Leave any on the counter if you want to eat it later.

Yesterday drawing at Starbucks all my pens were empty. Huh. Four of them. So I drew with pencil. Today yet to fill them tried a 6B charcoal a la Alex Powers. It loved this Stillman and Birn Alpha. Unlike the pencil it does not repel watercolor.

There's actually a screwed up pen sketch hidden on the left of my grandson.

Labs are hard to paint. The highlights are almost blue. I slapped combos of mixed burnt umber and ultramarine in the dark areas and bled out the edges w clean water for the highlights. Shadows are cerulean and Quin burnt sienna.

Ttyl Margaret who had another busy day xoxoxo

Day 1095 The Flowers

July 24, 2017Leave a comment

Flowers 20×30 Strathmore Bristol paper

Flowers Riechison 300 lb cold press After my friends loathed my sweet little Chinese doll I decided to have another go at this bouquet on some Strathmore Bristol paper. Since it acts like hot press it lets the colors slide around on it and mingle like no other paper I have tried.

That paper meant aLOT of fast painting. Smallest brush I used was a 10 Da Vinci Kolinsky Sable.

Despite that you will get runny drips which I love. It also meant using a lot of paint.

I had to leave it at this point. I will say it was easier to continue the background without hard edges like would have happened with hot press.

I got this far by about 8 pm and decided to quit because I couldn't find my masking fluid.

There was no way I was going to paint this saki pot without it. I finally remembered that I had put it up when I cleaned out my paint box before going to Charles Reid's class. He NEVER uses masking fluid.

Here it is ready paint. I used the tip of a paint brush handle to do this. Made great dots.

Just as I was finishing I got a smear of Quin gold which is staining even if you are using cold press paper let alone this type of paper. Eeekkk! Ruined?! I thought.

My friend Mike said NOPE looked awesome. Leave it alone.

So it's done.

Want to buy it?!

Colors used : Ted Nuttalls transparent palette plus cerulean and cobalt.

Margaret xoxoxo who went sketching at Starbucks today and had to resort to a pencil. FOUR pens all out of ink.

Day 1094 A Rewind

July 23, 2017July 23, 2017Leave a comment

As I am prone to do with a painting I hang them or prop them on the fireplace so I can study them while I watch tv at nite in the den.

Ilaina had problems. For some reason I had made her chin too long her forehead too high. And that awful purple blob on her chin.

I gotut my winsor newton synthetic badger flat and started lifting that purple blotting it with dollar store Kleenex. I lifted some Highlights with it too on her chin and reflected light under her chin.
Lifting and blotting. Always finding the brush with clean water.

Lowered that hairline. Lifted 1/2" of the brown background along her neck. After letting it dry I added a quick brush of the brown cerulean mix lightly where I had lifted it.

I hung her back up and Realized that I needed to lower her right shoulder. I lifted a bit of the flesh color to see if it worked. Blotted it with tissue. Let it dry. Added about a 1/2" of background to lower it.

I also trimmed down her hip and right leg a bit brushing it with some of the burnt umber cerulean mix with a two inch flat.
I think she's done but you know how we women are we want to look our best. She might be a little too square still. But that's for another day.

Time to finish this one up.

Margaret tying up looses ends today. Hugs xoxoxo

Day 1093 Its Saturday

July 22, 2017Leave a comment

Ilaina, painted on Strathmore Bristol, drawn wa 6B pencil. I must be rusty not having gone for a couple of weeks. Actually was nervous today. Too much caffeine?! I am never nervous at lifemodeling but I was today.

I actually like it but it doesn’t look quite like our lovely Ilaina who is such a great model. She does a lot of yoga is very muscular and toned and poses steadily as a rock.

I lifted color here and there and added to the background. She’d had a purple blob on her chin. And the shadow under her eye on the one on her nose has hard edges.

Eek what’s with the purple blob?!!

I love the background done w a 2″ flat cheap Joes Golden Fleece and a spray bottle and a little dabbing.

First break forty minutes. Colors used vermilion yellow ochre cobalt ultra violet mineral violet. Background and hair burnt sienna and cerulean and burnt umber.

Drew Murphys acrylic

AC oil

Terry oil

Rachel Miller watercolor.

Coach charcoal

Coach pastel

Al large oil.

May torture mine some more. Haven’t decided.

Ttyl

Margaret

Day 1092 WIP

July 21, 2017Leave a comment

Thought this would be done by now. What was I thinking painting a 20×30?! I should have switched to a larger brush-maybe my 16 kolinsky especially for the background.

I put in too much background again. Even though I used cobalt instead of cerulean it’s the same tone as the old mason jug which is why the mason jar gets lost.

So will have to darken either the background or the jar.

I will say I like it much better this am than I did last nite. Sometimes things look better the next day. Last nite I thought it was pretty bad. But I think it’s fixable

This little saki pot made me quit. Looked high and lo for my masking fluid. Only found a dried out bottle. Noway was I paintingnit without masking those dots.

Like the painting looked better this am I realized I had unloaded my paint box when I took Charles Reid’s class (he never uses masking) and left it in my big box that was Dads. Sure enough it was there.

So how did I do all those dots?! The end of a cheap model paint brush dipped in. If the dots were smaller I would have used a BBQ skewer or a toothpick. I also tried to make those farther away smaller and keep them lined up and in concentric circles. 😱

Loving the start on the flowers.

Laid in background in a hurry. Should have been thinking less is more.

The Strathmore Bristol makes those flowers run together and look positively delicious. It’s swirls on the surface similar to yupo. Hmm maybe I should try yupo next?!

So far. It needs something to the left of the hot sauce. Maybe the trim on the bridge cloth its sitting on!? Maybe more fruit?!