Day 610 – The Home Stretch is ON!!

March 3, 20162 Comments

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 609 -The Party’s Over

March 2, 2016Leave a comment

This is the last sketch done during Wet Paint party. I drew Sallie doing check out as we waited to pick up painting. Thank goodness Sallie bought mine.

This sketch started the quotes. I started to write “Even James has a cell phone” but I thought it would be more fun to write a JB quote. Did you know there’s a website with endless James Bond movie quotes?!

Hope I didn’t post this one but evidently the modern James Bond likes his cell phone! I only drew a bakers dozen James Bond sketches si it gets confusing.

Thanks for reading!!

Margaret xxx

Day 607 – 22 Sketches

February 29, 2016Leave a comment

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 605 Another Saturday

February 27, 2016Leave a comment

Ilania Acrylic 24 x 30ish”

Really liking today’s painting. This one is officially FOR SALE if she needs to come live at your house.

This was painted almost entirely by the world’s cheapest brushes. They shed. I had to remove several bristles off the painting. 🙄 And they don’t hold an edge. They are raggedy but they make some great bold lines in the paint.

Conversely I used some of the most expensive paint. All golden acrylic. Reason I say expensive is that I used Goldens Quin Nickel Azo Gold which was selling for $27.99 at Michaels the other day when I loaded up on white paint during their 40% off sale. Ouch!! Glad I have had a new bottle of it waiting for the old bottle to be empty.

Other colors it was painted with were ultramarine blue, pyrrole red, Zinc white and a smidge of burnt umber. The only resin I used Zinc white was because it was the first tube of white picked up but it could just as well have been titanium white.

White, pyrrole red and Quin nickel Azo gold make a great flesh color.

Here she is at second break after about an hour of painting. Those brushes cover a lot of ground FAST!! If I hadnt decided her face was a smidge to narrow she would have been done. I also didn’t like the shadow on the left arm.

Forty minutes of painting. Almost blocked in. Of course I had blocked her in four times at this point.

First time I had the canvas vertical. I couldn’t see her calves or feet so that was not going to work. I turned the board and started over.

Second time I decided I wanted her leg along the bottom of the canvas. Had to start over. 😁

Third time I didn’t quite get her to fill up the canvas. 😂

Fourth time I think I could have blocked her in with my eyes closed!!

That’s about it for today.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 598 – It’s Saturday

February 20, 2016February 21, 20162 Comments

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 595 – Dad

February 18, 2016February 20, 20163 Comments

Dad – 30x 40 Acrylic
So one is done and time to start the next one. You have to draw with a paint brush. Not easy. Try it sometime.

I am drawing it from this photo I took of dad a couple of weeks ago. He’s 93!

I couldn’t resist dumping it into Waterlogue. Kinda liking this. May have to paint it in watercolor too.

There’s also one of mom who’s a mere 90. This was taken four days after her birthday. Zoe was hiding from my parents mean schnauzers.
Mom was supposed to save her from them. Lol.
Thanks for reading. Don’t forget to leave a comment if you want to be in the drawing in Five days.
Margaret xxx

Day 594 – Is she done?!

February 16, 20163 Comments

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 586 – Ilenia

February 8, 2016Leave a comment

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

February 4, 2016February 4, 20162 Comments

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

Day 581 – Erica

February 3, 20162 Comments

Erica Acrylic 20x 30?

This is one of the best paintings I have done at life drawing on Saturday. I actually listened to what Al Beyers been telling me and spent a lot of time doing the blocking in of the figure. Trying to get the proportions right.

Still need to adjust her right breast but otherwise I think she’s done.