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.
Available. Today it was a house sparrow. I do think they are so cute. My husbands favorite because if you feed them they will sit on your foot. Well his foot. Watercolor pencil on fabriano postcard. This little birdie would love to fly to your house. Yesterdays Daily Bird A Chickadee. Also available! They are too cute. Daffodils in full bloom around here. Spring is springing the pollen is flying. 😵💫Out my back door tonite. What can I say but WOW!
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.
In the dining room madly painting. I signed up for watercolorlive 2023. It’s all my friend Mikes fault. She talked me into it. What a mad three days of wild fun painting. Classes and seminars lasted from 10 am til 9 pm. Will be posting them the next few days.
My Swan from the hour Paint along with Shelley Prior one of 18 teachers we had . She was awesome. She held our hands and walked us thru it step by step. I am in love w my swan and will be checking out her extensive YouTube feed. Her instructions were clear step by step with no need to rush to keep up. This swan just glows. My favorite out of my stack of paintings. Most of the paintings I did. There are TEN still left to do that I didn’t get around to for various reasons.
This took abt five minutes and was Julie’s tip. A fun way to start the day and to loosen up. We were all tense. I mean 18 teachers and all those hours. Eeek. Out agenda. We were VERY busy. No potty breaks no lunch breaks. A good way to diet. Lol.
Next up the great Thomas Schaller. Now almost all the teachers supplied a sketch for us to draw before class started. This was NOT a drawing workshop but a painting workshop. For some reason. Thomas didn’t think we needed a drawing. Hmm. Off to a rocky start. I madly drew it and started flinging paint around.
On a half sheet. My perspective was off. Supposedly his odd idea of firefly houses. Who knew they don’t have fireflies in S California where he’s from. They got his attention in his new home in NYC. My husband loves it Me not so much. Fireflies half sheet 140lb. So I had to cram in time to tinker with it. It was really bothering me. The perspective was wonky. Hate that and all that glaring white paper on the top left screamed at me. Better. Still won’t be my fav. He can hang it in his mancave. Lol. Still may need more tinkering. Time will tell. Next up a portrait with Patricia Guzman a lovely painter from Mexico who specializes in indigenous people. She’s a realistic portrait painter not my bag but she was a great teacher. At some point I got tired of painting every wrinkle and quit. LOVE the way this painting turned out. 1/4 sheet arches 149 Cold press I think.
Every artist had a different kind of paper or color of paint so I just used what I had and matched it up as closely as I could from my stash. Did I say I have way too much paper?!
My friend Mike my cohort in art crimes I mean classes. We met at a Charles Reid class in Boone at Cheap Joes 8 9 years ago and been friends and Charles Reid worshippers ever since. we are going to have a weekly zoom meetup til we finish out pile of not done drawings. There are quite a few. EekAnother day another sunset. More tomorrow. My fingers are tired. Xoxoxox Margaret
Over painted her with muck on my palette instead of using fresh color. Then I added some white gel pen to our sweet girl. Even the turquoise was already mixed on my palette. My amaryllis had finally bloomed. Fighting the urge to write what took you so long a little late for Christmas on it. Was trying to take a page from the late great Charles Reid’s playbook when I painted this. Loosing some edges. Hard and soft edges. Really needs fresh paint for it.
Nap time. Starting Watercolor live 2023 tomorrow. Runs 10-9 every day for three days. I will really need a long nap on Sunday.
Over painted her with muck on my palette instead of using fresh color. Then I added some white gel pen to our sweet girl. Even the turquoise was already mixed on my palette. Super aquabee 93 lb paper. Loved watercolor and dries almost flat. Just a little waver. Spiral so cheaper than a Stillman and Birn. Earlier My amaryllis had finally bloomed. Fighting the urge to write what took you so long a little late for Christmas on it. Was trying to take a page from the late great Charles Reid’s playbook when I painted this. Loosing some edges. Hard and soft edges. Really needs fresh paint for it. The Very Vera chocolate pound cake overflow that I turned into cupcakes. They were actually better than the pound cake. Super soft and moist. At book club we all voted we liked my lemon Very Vera pound cake better. I bought her book just for the lemon pound recipes but it’s actually the same one on the back of the Swan Cake flour box. The cream pound cake with an extra teaspoon of vanilla and two teaspoons of lemon. Yummy.
Nap time. Starting Watercolor live 2023 tomorrow. Runs 10-9 every day for three days. I will really need a long nap on Sunday.
Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art 