Category: art journal

Day 308 – a Few more of Maestro Z

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  There are actually ten pages of these but this set messed up the other eight already finished pages. I was bored after painting the first eight and decided to try something different. 

Fealing gave us an example with this wash on it so I decided to try it. The background is a wash of 16 washes of color.  I applied the first eight backwards so I did 8 more in the right order and the washes leaked.  It’s a great color BUT not so great I wanted to mess up ten or twelve other pages. 

See below for color combos for the background. 

Here are the pages that were messed up.  Even worse I had finished painting them ALL. There are grey blobs on all of them. One set of  pages even got stuck together.   
I did use some white gouache on a few to try to fix them with varying degrees of success. White gouache my BFF.   

  
Just a small leak on this one. 

  
Big lean on this but it didn’t show so much. 

  
Thank goodness nothing to mess up on these pages. 
The 16 layers of washes are 

Cerulean 

Orange

Cerulean 

Orange 

Cerulean 

Burnt Sienna

Hookers green 

Cerulean 

Then I did them in the right order 

Cerulean

Burnt sienna

Hookers green

Cerulean 

Cad orange 

Cerulean 

Cad Orange

Cerulean. 

Now I think I will try another one with just the last eight washes. The correct way lol. It does make a beautiful blue grey. 

Day 307 – Reportage Accordion Style 

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Maestro Z 

Drawing the conductor Maestro Z at Pops under the Stars was so much fun I wished I had brought an empty accordion book. This is just half of one. It would be fun to do a ballerina like this. 

  
Detail 1

The blacks were made with Inathridone blue and burnt umber.  Grey on the jacket is cerulean and burnt sienna or cobalt and burnt sienna.

 

Detail 2 

The background is Quin gold and Quin red painted on with my big Isabey squirrel mop and allowed to blend when they were wet. I think I might cover up Maestro Z and splatter this strip. 
 
Detail 3 
Drawing this was so much fun I drew ten pages of these in my sketchbook. Will post them tomorrow. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret XXX

 

Day 307 Reportage?! Part 2

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Love these new Isabey and Richeson squirrel mops that I got during my class with Fealing Lin. Not cheap but love the soft loose look of the paint you get with them. She paints all her landscapes with them.   
  Been busily painting the sketches I did during Pops under the Stars Saturday. This is Brad Means warming up the audience at Lady Antebellum Amphitheater in Evans Towne center. 

I sketched in the audience as they headed to get snack or a better seat.  There was a lot of movement. People standing and sitting down yakking with their friends. Sipping wine. Some people dressed to the nines. Others wore jeans and tees. I am sure there was some champagne in the crowds song with bud lite!

 

Gesture sketch of the orchestra warming up. The violinist was serious.  
 

Lee Anne enjoying the calm while Drew chased the perpetual motion machine Henry. 

 
Henry’s first concert. Every now and then he took off like a rocket with one of his parents racing to catch him. The child has a career as a future star sprinter. Get ready Decatur High School. 

Tomorrow more Pops Under the Stars. I only drew about 30 fast sketches and half an accordion book. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret XXX

Day 306 -Reportage?!

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Happy Mothers Day. 

Last nite we went to the annual Pops under the Stars with the Augusta Symphony. I drew about thirty pages and half an accordion book. It was a lot of fun and felt like I really was in the groove. Pages of sketches of the conductor. They are so energetic. Just wish we were closer to see Maestro Z better. 

So here is part of what I drew. Can’t wait to slap some paint on these. 

   Sketching the orchestra warming up!! 

Maestro Z 

The conductor was very energetic!!  

Sketching the orchestra warming up and some of the crowd. 

  More Sketching the orchestra warming up

  Henry loved it. His first fireworks and he thought they were amazing. 

  One of my favorite sketches. Lee Anne.  
The crowd nearby. 

More later. Gotta run. Mothers Day company coming!! 
Thanks for reading!! 

Margaret XXX

Day 304 Homeward bound

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such a great class we were all loathe to leave.  

 Our parting shot – a sign to remember us by. I lettered it. 

  Fealing painted it. 

  
Quick peek in the candy store aka Cheap Joes warehouse. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret  XXX

Day 299 – Silver Wyandottes 

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  aka chickens. More of the reason I drove across the mountains. Sketching chickens is THE most fun and I highly recommend giving it a go. 

  Silver Wyandottes are interesting looking chickens. With white diamond and a swirl of light feathers streaked with black around their heads. 

 
Stillman and Birn Zeta with a Noodler Conrad Flex loaded with Lexington Grey ink. I am actually not sure if all these chickens were Silver Wyandottes but they are colored like they are. 

  The bottom left chicken was colored with a tombow pen. It’s fun to wet them and see them run. You can lift the colors. I thought it might be a good way to color these oddly colored birds. Actually I think the Tombow was a little strong for these chickens. Next I tried a black and an indigo inktense  pencil. Things were going better. The blue softened the black. I drew a diamond pattern all over the hens bodies. Then I added white gouache after the inktense dried.  The benefit of inktense is that once it dries its permanent and you can paint over it. White gouache was also used around the beaks and heads to eliminate dark grey lines I didn’t want especially on the big chicken on the right.  That defined the face and beak better. The waddles and red bits on the head where colored with watercolor pencils- red yellow and orange! The background is 2 light blue watercolor pencils and a purple one for shadows. White gouache was brushed over the neck feathers to make them look fluffier. 

My gift to you this Sunday is these chicken picture so you can join in the chicken sketching fun. At least these aren’t running anywhere. Have fun and I would love to see what you do with them.  

Don’t forget to draw the silver Wyandotte earlier on this post. 

 

Drawing chickens is like drawing bumpy triangles.  The legs are two sticks with upside down trees on them. 

More park sketches tomorrow. 

Thanks for looking!! 

Maggie XX  
  
    

Day 298 – 70th Anniversary 

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Don’t know if when you sketch you have trials and tribulations like I seem too. Do some of your drawings just not turn out like you planned? That would be me. 

  Drawn while waiting for my parents to arrive with my kuretake brush pen in my Stillman and Birn Zeta this sketch at the Park Grill is one.  Just plain boring and not very attractive. All those huge pine logs are yellow. The chairs were oddly fun the sign thru the windows very interesting but for what ever reason it wasn’t working. It did become the perfect journal page.  

  

Journaling added some interst to it.  At least to me it did. My parent s have been going to this restaurant for 30 plus years and where looking forward to having their 70th anniversary there. Sadly the restaurant had changed from an upscale restaurant with a piano player to screaming blue grass piped music, one inch thick fried bologna sandwiches and “naner pudding” served in pint mason jars. However my expensive grilled trout was delicious.

So how was this picture saved? Not sure it was but at least it’s worth a look. Journaling in the background helped and adding white gel pen anywhere I thought light might hit the furniture and the windows. Crosshatching on the sign made it appear to have shape. 
I think I will stick to drawing chickens and landscapes for a while. 

Thanks for reading! 

Maggie XX

Day 296 – A few Barred Rocks

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you know what those are. Chickens. They were so cute and fluffy. Eating constantly. I drove all the way across the Great Smoky National Park just to draw them. Over a huge mountain.  I may be in love. There’s just something about these chickens that’s so appealing.   

  I hear you shaking your head. I used to do the same thing before I started drawing birds. If the cars were all Lapins fault the chickens are all Roz Stendahl’s fault.  I want to go to the fair and draw more in the fall!!😳

These were actually drawn as the chickens ran around me at the Oconaluftee Farm. I should have drawn them with black or grey ink but for some reason I drew them with De Artrementis Brown in my Noodler standard flex. 

It’s not a good idea to draw in the rain but I did that a lot the week I was in Gatlinburg because it rained almost daily. Thank goodness the ink dries quickly.  

  

They were colored with my Caran d’Ache using the side of the flat end. I decided it was easier and quicker to use them than my watercolors though thinking back I don’t supposed it mattered that much. 

  

I still have two more pages of chickens to color –  silver wyandottes a much shyer chicken that ran any time anyone was near it and even worse to color than the barred rocks. I will probably use my watercolor pencils. But these will take a while to color!! 

  Silver Wyandottes

I also had fun journaling stray thoughts about the chickens as I drew them and later as I colored them. 
Hope you enjoy them as much as I do. I need some chickens. 

Thanks for looking. 

Day 295 – Get Your Inner Jackson Pollock On!!

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  When I ran across one of my favorite card ever the BMW Z 3 in. The Kroger parking lot  I knew I had to draw one more car. I have always convetted this car. And they were made up the road from me in Greer SC. This is painted in  my Stillman and Birn Zeta Staedler pen watercolor and gel pen. Bytw the gel pen hates this paper. Very odd. 

Chose yellow for the background because they are complimentary colors. 

  
Car #1

This is my friend Marsha’s 1995 Corvette also known as Baby. I drew her three times.  Twice before I got her right and a third time just for fun on ledger paper. 

Car #1 is obviously awful but I did find the ledger paper interesting so I fluster it again.  

I have a whole book of ledger paper. Not one of the old gorgeous books that Lapin loves but one from the 70s I think.  Does that make it vintage?!

I have used the paper quite a bit in mixed media and it always gives a fun effect so I thought I would try the corvette on it. After all she’s vintage too. 

  
Car #3

The paper wrinkles.  Strike 1. I thought about mounting it on a piece of illo board and I still might. Hopefully that would flatten it out. It also did not allow for the watercolor to be bright.  The colors are more delicate on ledger paper an effect that I do like. So will I paint some more on ledger paper. More than likely especially if I can find someone to cut the book in half. It’s a tall narrow book. The other problem with it was that it will take forever to fill it. It’s 252 pages long!! 

I did find that the gel pen loved this paper. No idea why but it would go on like butter. It’s not so fond of watercolor papers.  

 
Car #2

This is painted in my Stillman and Birn Zeta. My second attempt. It still has a few problems.  The left bumper is off. It should be square and her read end is too long which is why I drew it the third time. 

Splattering. Be sure to cover your car when you do the background. Mix up soupy cerulean and yellow ochre and sling it at the paper.  Get your inner Jackson Pollock on. So much fun to splatter paint. Just know that it will go everywhere including your phone your ipad and you!

Go forth and look for vintage cars. They are not Ez to find. 

Day 294 – homework 

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I mean cars. Taking a Sketchbookskool class called stretching. This week is Lapins week. 

Lapin loves to do urban sketching drawing food people and cars. He even moved from France to Barcelona because there is such an active urban sketching group in Barcelona. How’s that for dedication!?

 He also likes to paint in old ledger books. Definitely a different look to that paper. More transparent but that’s for tomorrow. 
 

 Stuck getting my Prius first checkup yesterday I drew and painted cars in the dealership. Usually I draw on site and skulk off home to paint at leisure. I used my old Winsor newton field allege and a Cotman pallette I reloaded with all my quinacridones and a Niji water brush. I had never realized that  using a waterbrush would make the colors more delicate.  Hard to get lots of color with a waterbrush. 

The Scion.  A sporty model that was on the showroom floor. We drooled over it when I was car shopping last fall but was practical and got a Prius. 

Painted with cerulean and burnt umber greys. The windshield is a green blue. Pen is a Staedler in my Stillman and Birn. 

  

Still waiting. One car done so why not draw another?! A big Lincoln SUV was parked right outside the window nearest me. Have you ever tried to paint a white car that is mostly in the shade?! Careful or you get a blue car. 😁 background is cerulean and yellow ochre. 

Don’t forget to cover up your car when you splatter the background. 

Thanks for looking!