In my next life i want to be a court reporter. Since we have alot of connections w the low country esp Edisto and Beaufort we have been following the Murdaugh trial. Today he testified which never happens. I could not resist drawing him.
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Calling this Better than Alex did with the Sketch Artist
SLED asked him to work with a sketch artist for a portrait of the man who shot him on the Salkahatchee Road. Needless to say his idea of his attacker a man he knew well his Cousin Eddie was grossly inaccurate.
And that finishes off my Stillman and Birn Alpha book. Watercolor pencil. This was done with no pencil sketch like you do w watercolor but just coloring til i got it right.
I have Pumpkin ready to pour. I did her whiskers and wispy hits with a crowquill india ink pen just dipping it in and drawing with it quickly. And then theres this ballerina Mike and I are virtually meeting up to work on tomorrow.Supposedly she will look like this if we paint fast enough!! The Jury is out in this one. As in we shall see.
After much lifting this is how she looks now. She’s a big girl on a piece of cold press Cheap Joes Kilimanjaro 15×20”. An imperial half sheet as Vlad would call it. Trying to make Shelley Priors technique taught at Watercolor Live 2023 my own.
if your like watercolor painting you really should sign up. Exposures to about twenty artists for a reasonable price. Well worth the cost and it just goes up the closer it gets to the start of the next years class. I literally had rivers of paint swirling around. I darkened the wash because I hate the too even spikey feathers I had drawn on its back and it was the only way I could get rid of them. @ericrhoads @shelleyprior Taping to do the stripping. I had to strip off the dreaded thalo green run with a lot of tape and lifting with a Mr Clean sponge. Also used a stiff brush to clean off the little lumps and bumps where the green background thought abt overflowing. After I cleaned it with a Mr Clean. Better but still a slight mess. I also lifted bits of green that has overflowed into the flamingo here and there. They were everywhere. With the tape off. I am signing her and saying she’s done and available. I added some quin rose and quin gold plus some cerulean to her head to fix it. Tried to keep it soft. I also softened a lot of edges. It was feeling a little cut out to me which happens when the edges are too hard.
Colors used quin rose, quin gold, cobalt, cerulean, DS pimonite genuine, burnt sienna, aureolin, thalo green
A tufted Titmouse that was out back this am eating before the cats showed up for breakfast. The cats don’t know it but I let them go hungry while the birds are. He’s not quite what I meant to do but at least it’s done. This was how it started out and I didn’t like it. So I decided to darken the background. Still don’t like it. Then I got the razor knife out and started scratching it. Well it was as good as it was going to get. Titmice don’t hold still long enough to let you draw them. One seed and they are off.
Should have been finishing the flamingo but was having an unmotivated Saturday. 🙃🙃🙃
My baked mushrooms were delicious and so easy to make. Clean the big mushrooms. Bake them at 375 for 20-25 min. Slap a square or two of cheese on top and let it melt. Yummy. You can microwave them too but I like them baked better.
Been working on this bird for a few days. Maybe a week off and on.
This is 9×12 and done. I like a lot. So I decided to paint a bigger one. BYTW this one is available if you need her at your house. The background wash went well but darn what was with the bird drawing. the back looks like spikes and regular ones at that. Regularity is an anathema in a painting. So how do I fix it without starting over?! So of course I kept on painting. Starting the head. And then of course I forgot to take pics. Sigh. Really like the quin gold and the quin rose with cerulean on the neck and around the beak. But then no more pics. Sigh. So here she is almost done but those spikes are still annoying me. So yesterday after madly painting with Vlad I thought slap some paint on the background and get rid of those spikes. So I did. And it went well. I painted the horrible spikey look out. HURRAH!! But then I got the dreadful green run across the bottom of the beak. The 140 kilimanjaro was waffling like crazy with huge ripples making the washes run like crazy. To make it worse the green run was THALO notoriously staining of any paper. NIGHTMARE time. Slapping cobalt on to give her some curves. So her she is today. The paper dried amazingly flat for all the ripples it had yesterday. Maybe I can grey out the green streak. Tomorrows job! I do like the way she looks now.Maybe a crop to take a couple of inches off on the right?? She’s a big girl at 16×20”. Did I say I have already drawn another one?! 😵💫 Tonite sunset was rather spectacular. I saw it out of the corner of my eye as I was heating up our dinner leftovers. We do love a good bowl of leftover soup.
When he popped up on my screen during the paint along he was irresistible to my paint brushes. Been a while since I did drew from “life”. The drawing went well. 1/2 sheet of some or other cold press 140 that was handy. I was drawing fast. The Artist. I think I used my Mary Whyte palette colors. Off to paint another watercolor live class. Only seven left to do. 😳 I thought I had done most of them. 😵💫I really want to paint another flower painting I do like those a lot.
Griffith 140 cold press arches. Not my favorite painting. Stan Millers grandson. Stan does phenomenal portraits and has some great YouTube videos.
I will say that by taking his demo at Watercolor Live I have saved myself the trouble of taking a class from him in person which Mike had wanted to do before covid. Stan doesn’t want you to interpret the person but to paint an identical likeness. He’s very 123 so easy to follow but as my long time teacher Al Beyer said don’t worry abt the likeness unless they are paying you for it.
That said Stan has some absolutely gorgeous watercolors and rightly so he has made his living for forty years selling and teaching it.
I should add that I could soften a lot of edges with the Mr Clean eraser if I wanted to. I did the one on his right cheek with it and the arches paper was just fine with it. I pulled it down his cheek a couple of times and they did the trick. I will say one of the things I don’t like abt this portrait is all the hard edges which of course I could soften.
TIP: I cut the Mr Clean Eraser up into smaller wedges so I don’t have to deal with the whole big eraser which is sponge sized.
Sometimes I seem better at drawing paintings than actually getting them painted. Hopefully tomorrow.
A fun paint with George Politis a lovely Greek guy who was such a helpful concerned teacher. He was worried I had a question about masking. And offered any help. I didn’t for him – it was for the teacher before him like why couldn’t you tell us we needed to mask BEFORE class. Not a lot to ask. He walked us thru this painting in a concise simple easy to understand manner with great results. I really enjoyed his class and would take from him again. He also has quite a few videos on YouTube though I have not had time to look.
Still slogging away at the blue black background washes. Tomorrow I am painting them no matter what else happens.
No idea how many times I have glazed these. But I think I might be done. Will sleep on it for now. Gorgeous blue. Prussian blue layer then a black layer repeat ad nauseum til it’s lovely. Now for those darn fruit. Fabriano 300# cold press Yesterdays sunset got better and better till it was just glorious. Today nothing but grey skies. Oh well you can have gorgeous everyday.
Make another one and another one and oh wait make a third. Apricots in a bowl one day if one of them turns out.
First one I drew on 140. Since it gets a wash of Prussian blue then black I decided it would t work out well on 140. So I drew it again on 300# fabriano cold press.
Oops I painted the bottom of the 300 alizarin. NOPE it’s suppose to be grey. Back to the drawing board! No way u can overcome that red and make it grey. Black yes grey nope. and my wash at the top is doing odd things. It backwashed a bit. Not exactly blooms but holidays. Number 3 also 300#. Finally all the colors where they belong. AND I found my masking picker upper in my old paint box. Haven’t used it in years and there it was waiting for me. Peeled all that masking right on up. The masking ripped surface of the fluid 140# surface. Peeled it right off. 😳😳😳
By the way a layer of Prussian blue with a layer of black over it makes a delicious blue. And if that didn’t work you can alternate them til you get them really dark. Right now I have a light one and medium one and a dark one. All nice blues. Try it u might like it.
So now I have plenty to practice on. Surely one will turn out. We shall see.
Chicken pot pie
Hubster started saying the pie is burning. I told him can’t check it I am running a wash. It didn’t get too brown. Margaret with her feet up. Xoxoxox
Chasing after Iain Stewart for an hour and a half Saturday. Got WAY too purple in the foreground so I tried to calm that imperial purple down. Then I Vlad-it a bit. Putting in tiny details w a dark dark grey. That was fun.
Then I went too far on the water but I can’t leave water just plain. I mean the only time the water here is flat is when there’s no current or no breeze. One or the other is always happening. Turned the wowed tree on the top left into a Christmas tree. That was fun. I mean eek. What’s with that purple. I swear that’s the color he said to paint it. He does love that purple. He suggested using a palette knife for the dark lines.
I actually had the same one. Thanks dad. It was my fathers old one. I tend to the triangular springy small ones that look like cake knifes. Anyway I tried my old springy one to do the poles but didn’t work to well. Dug out dads during the break between classes. So much easier. Then I made a lot of lines w it. Did walkways gang ways porches. Over the top as usual.
Night night. Though I had. A nice long nap I need another one to get rid of this cold. Oh yes u have had quite the cold thru this whole crazy long days of painting. Xoxoxox @
Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art 