Day 564 – Ilenia time!

January 17, 2016January 17, 2016Leave a comment

After forty minutes work. Other than her eyes were a little close together I think I like this one better than the more finished product. Like the immediacy and the brush strokes – the looseness of it.

This was painted with three colors. Goldens Nickel ago gold, alizarin Crimson and titanium white. I did add ultramarine and burnt umber to the hair.

Here she is now. Looking a little too old and what’s with the stripe on her tummy!? And the neck. An old lady chicken neck. Not good on a thirty year old. Too many hard edges.

That’s ALL got to go. No more small brushes! If it’s not a big hog bristle I can’t use it. Lol.
Back to the easel!!

Repost her when she gets better!!

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 563 – Auvers sur L’Oise or How to make a Map!

January 16, 2016January 17, 20162 Comments

Auvers is a small French village best known as the town for Vincent Van Gogh spending the last summer of his life here. He also painted 70 paintings in the 90 or so days he was there.

A short bus ride from Paris Auvers is a part of France that has been preserved as a historic area. It can never be changed. No new buildings can be added so it’s like a walk thru Van Gogh’s last days.

Vincent’s room is still there in the Aubeege Ravoux. A tiny room in the attic what the British call a box room.

Auvers Hotel de Ville July 14 1890 (The Town Hall, Bastille Day, the French Independence Day)

You can look out the window and see the Hotel de Ville which of course he painted. It still has the flags across the second floor Windows.

Turn right out of the Auberge and walk up Rue de Sausonne. The lane the stone gate the steps and the house are still there. The only thing that changes are the trees.

Climb the steps and walk down Daubigny to the Eglise Notre Dame de l’Assomption.

Turn left, walk up the hill to the famous wheat field.

Another right front the field will take you to the Cemetary where he is buried with his brother Theo.

A lovely little village. I was just sad I could not draw one sketch while I was there. zip zip zip we ran up and down the hilly river town.

Auvers je reviens!!

Oh before I close. How do I do these. Usually I start with a rough sketch of the route walked penciling in buildings I want to include.

Then I draw it out as I want it to be. I also make a mental list of embellishments for it. People or in this case sunflowers and crows and Van Goghs paintings.

Pencil sketch.

Inked map.

Thanks for reading. Off to draw in Aiken aka I am running late doing this post.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 562- Happy Anniversary

January 16, 2016Leave a comment

My blog is one year old today!! WordPress has been great!! Already twice as many followers as I had on my old Blogger blog after 9 years.

I have been putting off painting this sketch I made one Saturday nite when we sat under the Eiffel Tower enjoying watching it sparkle.

So many people were there including the guys who hawked these twinkling Eiffel Towers and bottles of champagne. I imagine someone would be busy picking your pocket while you bought one.

Pick pockets are terrible at the Eiffel Tower but we had nothing with us but our room cards, a sketchbook, and a pen or two in my pocket. No money.

They gave up trying to sell us one when I sat down on the curb and started drawing. Once again I drew the people as they drifted by.

So Happy Birthday blog. Thanks for following me.

Oh TIP: How I painted this. Wish I had taken photos. First I painted the tower with Winsor yellow and let it dry. Then I painted the people with a mixture of mineral violet and cobalt and bits of burnt sienna and burnt umber.

Then I painted the ground and the tower with Quin gold. Shadows got added wet on wet violet and cobalt.

The dark sky was painted TWICE Inathrodone and burnt umber mixed. Let it dry between coats. If this were not in my sketchbook I might paint it again. Last I added shadows where the girders crossed.

Trees. Ooops forgot them. Quin gold and Daniel smith green apitite with some of the night sky color painted over it.

Is the tower accurate? NO! But it does give the feel of standing under the tower on a dark nite enjoying it twinkle with the rest of Paris.

Day 561 – Rouen returns?! Changes!!

January 15, 20162 Comments

Final for the moment – Place du Vieux Marché – the Old Market Place in Rouen

Can’t remember if I posted this since I have painted on it for a couple of days which is why I am calling this Changes. See if you can find the changes. I know I posted it on Instagram but not sure about my blog.

Earlier this evening

This is the the market place where Julia Child first tried French cooking in one of those buildings in the background. It’s also the place where Joan of Arc was burned and the large grey roof is the church dedicated to her in the middle of the market place. Rouen is also the capital of Normandy and forty miles or so from the coast or La Manche – the Sleeve – as the French call the English Channel.

About three pm
The customers were sketched in as the drifted by doing their shopping. A lot of them had dogs or small children. It was a holiday – Armistice Day which is a big deal in France still.

Yesterday!!

This was the original. Some of the figures and the trees did not stand out. So I spent the next day off and on brightening or darkening the surroundings to make the painting pop more. I used my camera a lot taking photos of it to see if something else was needed.

Too tired to post the colors. Maybe tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 560 A Chimera

January 13, 2016January 11, 2016Leave a comment

And I know you like I thought they were all called gargoyles. Nope this one is a chimera on Notre Dame in Paris. It’s the companion page to the Notre Dame sketch.

I actually like the journal side of the page a lot. Colors hmm Quin magenta and sienna?! Quin gold and of course Quin sienna and cerulean on the chimera.

Think I will go back and paint the left band cerulean too.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 559 Rue de Renard

January 12, 20162 Comments

Opposite the Cafe La Pause Beaubourg near the Hôtel de Ville in the Marais. Also down the street from the Pompidou where we had spent the morning.

Absolutely loved the art in the Pompidou. What a massive building. With its insides on the outside odd looking among the late 19th century Hausmann style building. And this day so hot inside. No cold weather when we were in Paris during November. A very muggy 70-80 degrees with 91% humidity. 😳

I was impressed with the great masses of humanity walking the streets of the Marais.

People everywhere and almost to a man or woman dressed in black. Evidently after September one must wear black in France!! And most had their faces down reading their phones.

TIP: I always take a just in case photo of my drawings as I do them. I actually popped the original photo of this into Waterlogue to see what it would do and tried painting it that way. Not easy since the colors in the ap are not normal watercolors. But fun to try.

Colors used!! Painted with my travel pallette. Cerulean, Quin gold and Quin sienna on the buildings. Quin magenta, burnt umber and Inathrodone for the darks and watered down for the side walks and greys.

Red is cad red mixed w Quin coral to brighten it. I was too lazy to go dig up my Quin red. Lol.

A little hookers green and some phtalo blue.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 558 – Which do you like?

January 11, 20162 Comments

Background 1

I spent most of yesterday repainting the Ilenia’s background. This is the current background and my favorite so far. I also did a lot of work on the bottom background adding alizarin here and there to tie it to the background. Trying to loose some edges and get rid of the pasted on look of the figure bits of the purpley dark was added to her hair to blend it into the background. I had to completely paint out the blue background 2 with titanium white to get rid of the blue and paint the background as it is in the first picture.

The background colors are burnt umber, alizarin and ultramarine blue. I also added touches of burnt sienna and yellow ochre. It always seems that I scumble backgrounds a lot. And of course some of it was just painted with a sable paint brush which gives a smoother finish than the hog bristle that I used for scumbling.

Background 2

I thought I would like this color better than I did. It’s cerulean, nickel azo and titanium painted over background 3 which is really the first background I tried out and another I usually like. I thought it was too over powering.

Background 3

Burnt umber and ultramarine blue with some nickel azo over brushed or scumbled over the darker colors.

TIP: if you get tired of getting up and walking back from your painting to look at it you cab use your home.

Here are a few other versions of background 1.

So my question dear readers is WHICH do you like? As I said so far background 1 is my favorite.

Thanks for reading!

Margaret who is off to class to make great art tomorrow. Xxx

Day 557 – Saturday Life Modeling

January 10, 2016Leave a comment

Ilenia after about an hour and a half of painting. Acrylic 30×36 hardboard panel

Always a fun weekly event.

I thought she was going well for working in the dark. For some brilliant reason I had my easel turned AWAY from the light. Maybe because we breeze in right before start time. Hopefully next time I will set it up right.

Obvious problem was the bottom leg was too long. Her knee sticks out to far. I think that was due to slight shifts in the pose during breaks. Hard to resume the exact pose every time.

Here she is now. Knee shortened. Top hip lengthened a bit on the left. All that foreshortening is such a pain.

The background needs more work. The brown is too dark and those triangles at her feet need to go! 😳

Hard to paint such a big piece in a few hours. I think I have about five hours in it now. Dos I say I use big brushes.

Ilenia by Al Beyer – oil – at least 3×4′

This is Al Beyer’s aka painting. He was painting a few feet to my left. Always interesting to see how he goes about painting the model.

And how different the model looks just a few feet to my right or left. Al to my left barely saw her head.

Lee drawing on my right had her full profile whereas I barely saw her nose.

Als after two hour session which is really an hour and a half or so.
Colors used: all golden or liquitex -titanium white, nickel Azo gold, pyrrole red, cad yellow, ultramarine blue, burnt umber, alizarin Crimson. I buy artist grade but whichever is cheaper or the color I like better.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 555 Notre Dame

January 8, 2016Leave a comment

Ok so it’s not really pink. I just like the way the alizarin looked. All yellow ochre was oh so boring. Cerulean and some Quin sienna in the shadows.

Drawn with a sputtering skipping Noodler Ahab. I bought a new one because my beloved old standby was leaking. This one is worse than the first one. Going to get the leaky one out and put in some new seals. Maybe that will fix it.

Anyway. Got to knit the yahd guy a hat so he won’t freeze in this lovely cold snap.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx