Category: portrait

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 611 – Stick fun!

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 I have been playing with my stick bamboo stick all week. Done a sketch everyday. The Carbon Black ink from Gouletpens works best with my stick. Not the India ink. It seems to load on the stick better. 

Anyway after I tried to shade the ibis in the back grey since he’s in the shadow I decided to do negative painting in the background letting the ink puddles bleed into the brush water to make various shades of grey. 

It seems impossible to get control of that ink flow. It leaves a lot of hard edges which are great for Key West underbrush but not on a bird. 

After the grey puddles dried a little I went back in and drew ink lines in for sticks on the ground. 

  
If I could change this I would get rid of the grey on the farthest back ibis. 

  
This is yesterday’s ibis. I actually like them except for all the black. These are young ibis and have a lot of mottled grey on their necks. 

Maybe I will redraw them and add some background? I think they are funny. The Ibis at the Key West Wildlife Center are beggars and wait for snacks aka dog food that was fed to them. 

  
My favorite still are the chickens. I don’t know why but I LOVE chickens. 

Did I say writing with a stick does not produce the most graceful writing?  

 
 Here’s another chicken sketch done earlier.  I can’t imagine dong this on location. I would have an inky mess everywhere.  Not good when it’s permanent and very black!! 

I also had a paper problem. I used my beloved 93 # Aquabee first but the ink is so thick from the stick that I got out my #98 Canson mixed media sketchbook and used it. No more ink soaking they the paper. At least not yet. 
And here’s Livia again.  One of the first sketches withy the stick  from last Sunday. I don’t know why I didn’t notice one of her legs is smaller than the other. But that’s an easy fix. Sketching frequently had a lot of surprises like a too skinny leg. 
Enjoy your day. Happy stick sketching. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

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 609 -The Party’s Over

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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 608 How many More?

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Hard to resist drawing James with one of his many ladies.  Turns out the girl in the foreground is actually newly wed to James Bond who you can see in the background. 

 
I still haven’t painted this. It’s not very big 6×9″maybe. Lots of tiny details but who knows it might actually be fun for a big painting?

  
I have a few pages of these….the models changed their poses before au had a chance to finish them but I still think they are interesting especially the girl on the right. She managed to twist her hands in front of her body planting her hands on her hip bones and HOLDING the pose. Wow!

Thanks for reading.  I still have quite a few French sketches I have yet to post too. Hoping to get to them soon. 

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 606 – Sunday Fun!! 

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  Been drawing with platinum carbon black ink and a bamboo stick. Really a lot of fun.  

I started going thru the pics to find something to draw. I mean why would I want to go outside on such a lovely day?! 

Watching Downton Reruns ff thru the begathon. I already send them $$ 
 Anyway I found a cute one of my granddaughter and drew it. I had a few too many black lines in her tiny face like the eyebrow. So I painted her w gouache. 

First gouache portrait ever. Not easy but at least she’s not black from her nose to her chin. 

The only way I could get a soft edge on the face shadow was to feather white over her dry cheeks. Totally different experience from watercolor or acrylic.  

Gouache brands used Winsor Newton and Horadam. Colors red yellow white blue and burnt sienna. 

A
  


My lab  Honey drawn with the Noodler Creaper and smudged with a wet finger. She’s a very long nosed lab. Not a block headed English lab like Isis on Downton. Touches of burnt sienna gouache for her eyes. 

 
This one was drawn with the stick too. Fun fun. I think her eyes are a little high but oh well.

Get a stick and try it. You might like it. 

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx 

 

Day 605 Another Saturday

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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 604 – Another Bond or two

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    I did say I have twenty two of these right?!! This is one of my favorites.  I like Sacred Heart as the background. As a deconsecrated CatholicChurch it’s a great background. 


One of my favorites of the Bond girls.  She had a flowing black negligee on with sheer sleeves.  That was a challenge to paint.  I first painted the arm. Let it dry and then over painted it with a watery black as I painted the whole negligee. 

 I really wanted to put a bubble for two quote but couldn’t figure out how to do that. Like the red hair against the cobalt background and of course the splatters. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx