Another wild paint

March 17, 2021March 17, 2021Leave a comment

Boats off shore in blue water. Arches 280# cold press the photo an Italian coastline town

The sketch.

Half done. Orange roofs w a touch of red. Purple buildings w a touch of Van dyke brown. The start of the docks and the tops of the umbrellas. The hill is olive green

Three hours later. Done with every color in the palette in the boats and water. The water is Thalo blue, cobalt turquoise, and cerulean. Hookers under the boat. White gouache for the boat lines and the masts and spars.

Zoe does like some of the kitties. Just not the one who likes her. .

Margaret ready for bed because you really shouldn’t paint two paintings in one day. Xoxoxo

Don Andrews AWS

March 16, 2021March 16, 2021Leave a comment

I took an online zoom class with Don Andrews The Figure in the Lnadscape. I have watched all his available YouTube’s and he was on my bucket list. It cost $35 so I was in. One thing I love about the epidemic is the fact you can stay home and take a class for $35. Normally a class with Don would run $600 for a week.

At the end of class. My figure where is it?! We used a limited palette. Six colors. And i put out his whole list of colors whine whine. I think we only used gamboge, opera pink, cerulean, raw sienna, alizarin, turquoise.

The drawing. Did I say I did not get the 911 to draw it so mine is not right. Too many similar sized rocks.

First wash on a quarter sheet. No that’s not yellow but gamboge which is like a school bus yellow. Yes there’s a drawing under there. A lot of fast and furious painting with a big 1 1/2″ brush. If I had used the half sheet like I was suppose to I would have used a 2″ or even a wider hake brush. Have one of those 3-4″ wide.

As Vlad Yesileyev I think said recently use the biggest brush you can to do the job. And I have always used a big brush. Probably should have used my size 14 sable which I am familiar with not a flat. A better chance of success.

Layering in the midtones. Trying not to wipe out the whites or the midtones. Quite a challenge when you are using a large flat wash brush.

Then the darks which are the same colors just thicker. A cream consistency. I think we did add in a blue. Ultramarine or cobalt. Oops getting hard edges. Not allowed. Sigh.

Painting the water and the figure. He disappeared. Oops. The water reflection is just burnt sienna and ultramarine.

And finished. My rocks could have more greys. Oh well. At least the hard edges are where they are suppose to be. And the rocks are weird shapes. Like the round boulders and the wedge shaped blue rock but that’s because I drew them in about three minutes.

He’s sending us the video so I can paint it again. We get access to it for a month. So now to make myself do it!!

Margaret xoxoxox who actually read a book today instead of painting. The Restoration of Celia Fairchild by Marie Bostwick. One of the characters is based on a friend of mine and the book is dedicated to him so of course I had to read it. A beach read book but fun.

Pont Alexandre

March 15, 2021Leave a comment

Probably done. Half sheet hot press fluid 140# A little on the dark side.

The photo for inspiration

Laying out the pens to give you an idea of where you are going. I wish I had tipped my pens more well the ones for the light and the statues. Would have made it wonkier. Maybe I will do another tomorrow .

Initial sketch with a tombow. 65 grey I think.

Inking with a .3 and .1 one permanent fine liner.

Watercolor wash. Prussian blue dioxzine purple cad yellow abs raw umber.

More ink.

A detail up close. Needs more fine pen work.

Pen work building up.

done at least for today.

The queen of scarves says gooodnight.

Margaret xoxoxo

Quayside Doneside

March 13, 2021May 19, 2021Leave a comment

I removed the icky grey cerulean yellow ochre stripe on the bottom of the boat on the right. Looks so much better now so I signed it calling it DONE!! Paint along with Vladislav Yesileyev.

Here’s the boat with the icky stripe still. I taped it off and swiped it with a Mr Clean eraser. Softened the bottom edge. Looked at it awhile and pronounced it D O N E.

Margaret taking it easy tonite. Online class with Don Andrew‘s tomorrow. Wanted to take a class with him for a long time. LOVING Zoom classes. Xoxo

Too tired too

March 12, 2021May 19, 20216 Comments

To finish today.

A day spent in Prague. Still lots to do. List too long to write but… it needs a lot. Oddly I actually like it for once. Usually I don’t like them til the next day.Paint along with Vladislav Yesileyev

Vlads photo

The drawing on a half sheet of Hahnemuhle 140# cezanne.

First wash

Plus the sky. Took about an hour and a half to get to this point.

Really hated it at this stage. Yuck.

Added some details but there are sooo many to do. I will work on it some more manana.

Silly geese started honky at us. No clue why. Must be close to a dozen.

Margaret xoxoxo just tahred.

Sailboat anyone?!

March 11, 2021May 19, 20214 Comments

Paint along with Vladislav Yesileyev. So I thought I was done but I already find one thing to do. Shadow on the bow of one of the boats.

All I can say about today’s painting do NOT use cerulean thinking you are using cobalt. Combined with yellow ochre it makes MUD. Non transparent MUD.

Vlads photo

Vlads sketch.

The sketch on a half sheet of Hahnemuhle 140#

First wash

Working on midtones.

and now.

Margaret done in. Also cleaned up the pantry and the fridge and finished two other paintings. Too busy today!! Xoxoxox

Another foggy day

March 10, 20212 Comments

Arches 280# cold press paper Cheap Joe’s American Journey paint colors indigo, ultramarine, burnt sienna, dioxzine, quin gold and lots of water.

A fun painting to do. I could change several things and betting I will do another one with green fir trees next time.

What would I work on?! Less striped sky. Better firs. But all in all I like it. Masking the birch trees to preserve the whites before I started painting.

I would wear rubber gloves. Eeek. Time for scrubby dubby.

Also might try using some of these paints on another one. “. L-R Daniel Smith Payne’s Grey, Cheap Joe’s Payne’s Grey and Cheap Joes Moonglow

Love the blues in the Daniel Smith and all the purples and blues in the moonglow. Last one is so yum.

Zoe posing like the pretty princess she is. She does love a scarf or two.

Margaret xoxox

Calling It Scrubby Dubby

March 9, 2021March 9, 2021Leave a comment

because I scrubbed at this for over an hour I think. Maybe call it Mountain Mist?!

Before I started scrubbing. Everything was painted wet on wet. The trees were done with the liner and a chunk of kitchens sponge plus splattering. Only two colors were used. Payne’s grey and ultramarine. Arches 140# rough.

I had no idea how to do the fog which I wanted to do the fog because I live on a river that is frequently heavily fogged. I was following a YouTube video with David R Smith to practice for class tomorrow with my new liner brushes.

All my tools used to paint this. Red handled brushes are the scrubbers.

I was scratching my head when o realized his supply list for tomorrow said two scrubbers. On the video he did a tree with a Mr Clean Eraser. After scrubbing with the scrubbers for about an hour I realized duh. Use the Mr Clean. If it could lift off a birch tree it could lift off mist. I finished not long after that.

I used the scrubbers to make wispy strands of fog floating off the river. Yes there are wisps if you look. 😘

And done. Time to use the palette knife to loosen it from the block of paper.

Margaret xoxox

Sailing down the Dee

March 8, 2021March 8, 2021Leave a comment

An old derelict boat on the side of the river. Today in my inbox there was an email from Etcher.com to pay $5.50 for access to drawing a boat with Ian Fennelly. I was willing to throw five dollars away in case it was bad. Well it was and it wasn’t. NO PHOTO to draw from. What the heck. So I went to Ian’s IG feed and did a screen shot.

The video also did weird things. I watched it in a window a little bigger than a postcard. If it restarted once it restarted four times. Never going back to where you were. Groan.

Here’s his. Love the silly birds. Seagulls of a sort.

First thing u do is lay out the shape using markers to fix it in your mind.

Then you draw it with a midtones grey tombow. I think this is a 25.

I finally made a key to the shades of my nine shades grey tombows. Got tired of opening each of them up.

So I got bored and went ahead of the video. The video was very cumbersome. If you had to restart it always went back to the beginning. WHAT?!!

My footprints got out of control. As a friend quipped they looked like elephant tracks. Eeekk.

What to do what to do. So much work and a massive screwup.

White pentel gel pen to the rescue. I may add some white watercolor paint to it also.

Here are all the pens. The tombows and pentel permanent liners. Mostly used the .3 on this piece.

Margaret watching Haregan and Oprah. Not sure I will stick with it. Hmmm. Xoxoxo

A Quick Trip to England

March 7, 2021March 7, 20212 Comments

To draw the Harp Inn on the River Dee with Ian Fennelly and Sketchbookskool. A lot of fun but like chasing a greyhound painting with Ian.

The photo. The Harp Inn, Little Neston, England near Liverpool has quite a history including coal miners getting stuck here during floods from the River Dee across the street. The interior is on Yelp and looks quite interesting. Ian said the building was more than 200 years old.

Really wanted to do this view with the great Harp sign but hard to change from what the teachers doing without getting confused.

A quick sketch with my light grey Tombow pen – the pointy end. The lines are all slightly tilted. Nothing is square in the drawing though in reality the inn is square aka plumb.

Adding ink with my .5 pentel permanent pen. Don’t know where my thinnest one has gotten. Oops.

Laying in some watercolor. Got a little too dark with the ultramarine and burnt sienna on the roof at this stage. Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna, Yellow ochre, a dab of cad red and cobalt teal.

Painted with a 1″ flat and a rigger. Yes a rigger.

Using various grey tombows to color in the letters and other darks. Then a .3 pentel marker for line work and cross hatching.

I lifted a lot of the dark sienna and ultramarine off the house. Even though this is hot press paper the fluid paper is user friendly and lets you lift some of it. It even let me lift some of the pen when I took off the paint. Oops. But that was permanent ink. Not something u can usually lift.

I added a lot more crosshatching. Also since this house is daub finish dots all over with anything I could make dots with. Winsor Newton watercolor markers. Yellow ochre and turquoise. More line work with the .5 and .8 pentel pens and the uniball micron pen.