Category: Acrylic

Day?! (640) It’s Saturday

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So once again I posted this on the wrong blog.  I really have to delete the other one. Sigh. Hurrah!! It’s deleted. No more posting on it accidentally. 

😃When I am home that means I have been sketching and painting at the life modeling session that Prof Al Beyer had at USC Aiken. Pleased with my sketch today. 
    

Ilenia 20×30″. Acrylic
I will probably add some more purple to her left side. I had more but painted it out. In the rush of an hour and a half of drawing and painting sometimes u just run out of time.  
Probably change the red on her cheeks. I think it’s a bit much. But better than the purple I had on her cheeks to start with. I left it in Aiken so I would get a fresh look at it Monday and not be able to torture her all weekend painting her at home. 
The background could use some work too. It’s just some ultramarine blue that I scrubbed on with a paper towel when it spilled in my paint box. I finally just let it dry instead of cleaning it up. What a mess that was. 
Colors used titanium white, nickel Azo gold, pyrrole red and dioxzine purple. Burnt umber for hair. Cad yellow yellow ochre and a bit of Green gold in the drapery. 
   Thanks for reading!
Margaret 

Day 622 The Major 

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30×40″ acrylic
 Is done. What else can I say. Hmm should I add at least for today?! 😊 you never know what I might decide needs fixing when I look at him tomorrow BUT I really do think he’s done. 

 

 He will be entered in the big show in Anderson SC next month so let’s hope he doesn’t talk to me anymore. 

 
Detail of his hands

Tip:The smallest brush he was painted with was a 1″ hog bristle filbert. Impossible to get to picky with these brushes. He was also painted with a three inch house painting brush. 

The only work done with a small brush was the original  sketch. It was done with a 1/4″ Winsor Newton monarch filbert. I do love those brushes. 

  
I also finished her up yesterday but she reserves the right to talk to me and say MORE!! 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx whose drowning in the early pollen. Green snow covers the world in Augusta Ga. 

Day 616 – Flapping those wings. 

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She’s been thru a lot of changes now. Really love her wings. In fact really like EVERYTHING except one tiny thing. Her right breast.  How did it get so round?! But that’s easy to fix. At least I think it is.

Hardest part will be going downstairs to the garage to get the paint out of the car. 

Here are a few before and in he process photos.  

  
Saturday after an hour and a half. Maybe she was better then.  I dunno. Anyway she told me she wanted to be an angel. 

  
Monday. At some point I think I for her left foot to light in the bottom. Hmm how?! And I didn’t like the stripiness of the wings. 

 

Knocking   Back the gold and dark streaks in  wings. I added a lot of brushy dry white. 
   
And the bottom part brushes out whiter. I also added a lot of iridescent gold and a smidge of copper which is impossible to see in a photo. 

Ok so I will fix her foot and her breast.  The foot makes her look floaty somehow. Took me till Judy now looking at all these photos to figure out why she looked that way. 👀  And I thought the problem was her breast. 

Thanks for reading.  

M who needs a nap now. Xxx
Margaretxxx

Day 610 – The Home Stretch is ON!!

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30×40″ acrylic 

Major Dad is making progress. In case u missed passed posts will add some of the process.  

 

  • Original photo. Major Dad at 93!  Did not want to paint all those chickens!! 

   
The block in. 

 
Playing with the photo in Waterlogue 

 
 Washing in the foundation colors. Recent reading about acrylics told me NOT to do this with just water. If you use more than 25% water with your acrylics it breaks down the polymer binders. I used polymer gel to thin it. 

Read about more than you ever wanted to know about acrylic paint  and mediums here on liquitex.com. 120 plus pages of anything and everything about acrylic paints. I read the whole book and it’s actually very interesting. 

Bytw I use both Golden and Liquitex. I still have a few older paintings that are painted with liquitex which was the first acrylic and they are still in great shape. I buy whichever is on sale with a coupon. 👍🏻

 

Layering in color. Did you know u can use the cheap paints for this later and finish with the expensive stuff?! Sounds like a lot of work, right?! 

  
I added back in a lot of the lines I had painted over trying to tie the painting together. I also lost some of the lines on the face. Probably need to loose a few more on his hands. 

When he’s done he’s getting a coat of acrylic varnish as soon as I get the kind the book lists.  Evidently there is one that liquitex makes that is removeable with ammonia. Who knew. The book also said all acrylics should be sealed because otherwise. they remain porous. 

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 607 – 22 Sketches

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When you do that many you can post sketches for a week or more never repeating yourself. The girls costumes begged to be painted and the  many columns lining Sacred Heart. Great fun to paint wet on wet. 

 
The second or third sketch I did that night.  I had not quite warmed up.  Gouache is great for covering the background fast. When you have 22 sketches to paint you better have something that gets done quickly besides the sketching.  

  

One day when I grow up I want to paint urban sketches like this one by Al Beyer done in India a couple of years ago. Can you see the moped flying by? This is a big oil painting 3×4′ not a tiny sketch but definitely falls in the urban “sketching” genre. You can see more of his work here but sadly non of his urban sketching he does on his Maymester trips abroad – India – China – and this year Cambodia. Watch out Angkor Wat. 

Thanks for reading!

Margaret xxx

Day 598 – It’s Saturday 

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Fun morning painting in Aiken. Our model was a no show but Ilania was there to draw so she kindly stood in for Alice the no show. 

  
Here she is blocked in after our first go round. I was really liking her at this point. Maybe I should have stopped then? 

I kept putting her belly button down past the third head hash mark which just threw everything off. 

Odd how that works. Finally at the ninth hour my nonmathy brain got it. It was above the third head hash mark. Duh!! 

Background has to be done but otherwise just a twitch here a twitch there. However too many and she just goes down the tube. 

Despite that considering these twitches!!😨 

Fix right breast. Too droopy!😔

Left eyebrow eyes too defined wrong angle 

Left hip. Curve starts at belly button 

Thin neck top to bottom on right

Shadow left of left breast

Dark blue line shadow under left hand.  
 Hopefully these will all be minor twitches. Nothing major.  

Funny story Ruth and I thought we were going to get the backside of her including the head but at the last second she turned around to face us. 

 Hurrah!! A pretty great  pose. 

Ilenia is such a gorgeous girl too bad I don’t do her justice.  

Colors used cobalt, nickel Azo gold white, burnt umber, ultramarine blue, cerulean.  And that’s it. 

Thanks for reading. Urban sketching coming up. Yeah!! 

Day 594 – Is she done?!

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The Party is  Over -30×40″ Acrylic 

I have been told to put my name on it. And some say it needs more tweaking. What do u think?! 

 

  I was told the roses were a little plain so I tweaked them some.  
Here’s how they look now.  Did I say I am NOT fond of painting roses?! They are such a problem but I like how these turned out. 

So am I done?! Don’t forget to leave a comment so you can be in the drawing on day 600. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 582 – A little reworking

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  Don’t forget to leave a comment for the 600 days drawing. Hmm is that a pun?!
I decided that all that green blue  I had painted on her was awful looking so I started painting.  

 That raccoon look was NOT good. Edges needed softening ALOT. 

I added a lot of burnt sienna for shadows and some nickel azo gold with pyrrole red and white for flesh tone. I also added a dark grey with sand in it to the background and then washed it with a thinned white. 

And softened edges. In case you don’t know. What that means it means that the edges are blurred aka softened like around her mouth and her eye. 

At the last minute I realized her tight shoulder was too high so I took about half an inch of the top and a bit off the side to round it some more. 

For the moment she’s done but you never know. Sometimes when you look at them you realize more work is required. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx who needs a nap. 

Day 586 – Ilenia

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Ilenia 24″ x 30″ Acrylic I have been paying attention to what Al said and trying to block everything in exactly before I start painting even though it’s more fun to just paint paint paint but the results are always disappointing when it comes to the human figure. They are almost always just off a bit here and there. 

  
Here she is blocked inat about 40 minutes of work. I didn’t notice till much later that her head was too big and as Dave said her haunch was too small. 😋

If u look u can see my hash marks from measuring her head. They are dark blue above her hip and to the left of her arm. 

I actually had started measuring her from the orange hash mark on the far right when I realized she would be painted on the right side of the board. So I drew another hash mark and started measuring her from the dark blue one. 

  
Here Ilenia is mostly sorted right before Daves she needs a bigger haunch remark. Funny thing is I had just told Charlie that he need to draw hers rear bigger on his drawing. That it was bigger than we think lol. An easy fix. Just add a curved swath of flesh color to fix her rear problems. Lol.  

 
Here she is now.  I think she could use a bit more work on her left eye and on her hand but hey I have a sweater to finish knitting. 

Colors used cerulean cobalt Winsor purple. The green is one of the blues and nickel Azo gold. Combines for an interesting color. Flesh is cad yellow, pyrrole red and white. Sometimes I used the nickel Azo gold for the yellow. Can’t live without that color. Love it!! 

Ultramarine blue and orange for her dark brown hair and brown shadows. 

Thanks for reading.  

Day 582 – The Party is over 

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The Party is Over – Acrylic 30×40 painted with a huge brush. 3″. 

I thought it was a four inch brush but I picked up the wrong one. SCARY stuff. I have never painted a painting with that size brush aka HUGE!!!  

There’s about five hours in the painting at this point largely because I started over on a bigger canvas. 

   
Here the first go round is drawn with a 1/2 sable brush. It’s about 2′ x 3′ on hardboard. I did not want to pay for a frame SO I repainted it on canvas. 

Interestingly enough it was much easier to draw the second time. I guess I had already worked out the problems on the first try?! 

  Here she is blocked in. Well kinda sorta. I kept having to paint out lines to correct the drawing or it would have been too confusing by can still see some of them shining thru the white.  
Here’s a close up of the girl. 

  
Here’s version two as of yesterday. I added in some of the blue lines and tried to get her face where it belonged. Not easy with a huge brush and a terrible photo. I finally thru on the big brush for a smaller one. That half inch sable. 

Looking at it today I think perhaps the face is too defined. A well that’s why it’s a WIP. Should have brought it home to stare at for the weekend while knitting and tv watching however I didn’t. Oops!! 

Bytw if. U ever want to paint a large painting fast get out a house painting brush. Yes it can be done. Hmm I need a bigger palette though. What should I use?! 

Maybe a sheet of plexi?! We shall see because that huge brush is almost as big as my palette! 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx