Beach combers

May 22, 2022May 22, 2022Leave a comment

Is done. Lots of wet on wet painting with huge brushes. The whites were not masked before painting. Call it living on the edge.

The sketch on 300# Kilimanjaro cold press

On the palette Aurelian yellow, vermilion, burnt sienna, Thalo blue(joes blue), manganese blue, alizarin, quin magenta.

I tried to fix the sky. When will I learn to never touch a wet sky wash. My downfall in these kinds of paintings. I just can’t resist tweaking and then it’s NOT wet enough and I get a bloom or worse lifted paint.

Hope your Sunday is wonderful. We are getting much needed rain here on the river!!

Margaret xoxoxo

Gone fishing

May 17, 2022Leave a comment

Me fishing. Incredible but it happened today. Actually I was painting in my Hahnemuhle journal while my dh fished. Of course the fish started hitting less than five minutes after he threw out his live bait. 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

I can see this one needs work after looking at it just now.

The weather was perfect behind Clarke’s Hill Dam or floating lazily on the river under a turquoise umbrella fishing.

He caught four like this. Two were big enough to keep. The other two were slightly smaller. This one is over 28 inches long a big boy!!

Maggie having a relaxing Sunday after WordPress tried to eat this post. Xoxoxox

WIP Paris Cafe

May 18, 2021May 19, 2021Leave a comment

Hahnemuhle 140# half sheet

Wishing I was sitting here having an espresso followed by a croque monsieur. For now. Too tired to work on it anymore today. Not crazy abt the people but then that’s not new. Paint along with Vladislav Yesileyev

First wash yellow ochre alizarin and cobalt Cad orange.

And the rest of the first wash. Cad red light, cobalt teal, cerulean w neutral tint yellow ochre and dioxzine mixed in. Funny how light the left hand buildings look now

The shadows added and MORE windows So many windows

And now. Time to put my feet up. Color me tahred. Xoxoxox Margaret

Strawberry Time

May 16, 2021May 16, 2021Leave a comment

So good. It’s terrible to have a fresh strawberry stand less than two miles from my house. And lots of other good fresh veggies like corn -delicious- and fresh local spinach and lettuce to name a few.
Most beautiful fresh onions I have ever seen complete with tops. Pulled that morning.

I left the house with $20 in cash in my pocket. by the time I went to pay for my items it was gone. No check and they do not take credit cards which I had plenty of.

A very kind man paid for mine when I told the lady I would run back to the house and find it or a check. Wow!! Thanks mystery man. His story is the pencil writing in the background. Had to commemorate the event.

Anyway Stillman and Birn Epsilon or hmm is it a Beta? heavy paper compared to the Alpha that I usually use. Uniball micro pen. American Journey watercolors.

Margaret xoxoxoxo

The boat has sailed

May 12, 2021May 19, 20212 Comments

I actually like this so far. The morning will tell. Paint along with Vladislav Yesileyev

Yellow ochre cobalt and alizarin This layer will eventually disappear or appear to be white.

Sky wash cerulean instead of cobalt. Otherwise the same colors. Yellow ochre alizarin and neutral tint

My terrible blotchy trees that I dry brushed. Colors cobalt Dioxzine purple yellow ochre for the purple color. Indigo and cad yellow w a bit of burnt Sienna for the greener colors.

Well zap a lot more done. Too much to tell u even a bit abt it but omgoodness that dinky little boat.

Fixing mistakes. Well trying to. Adding blacks to the trees.

And done for now. So glad those overhead branches hide my terrible rigging on the boats or the blotchy trees. Thank goodness. A reprieve.

Margaret ready for a nap after four hours of madly chasing after Vlad today. Eeek.

Xoxoxoxo

Somewhere in Italy

May 5, 2021May 19, 20211 Comment

On the whole I like it but feel it’s a little light. I will sleep on it and decide. Paint along with Vladislav Yesileyev

Even before painting I managed to smear the worst color of all to remove- Alizarin- on my lovely pristine white paper.
Eeek.
I did blot it off a little. By the end it seemingly became much less noticeable. Thank goodness.

First wash. Boy that took forever. While it looks dark right now it really dried to become very light. cobalt alizarin yellow ochre and cad orange

Sky wash done. I managed to keep my fingers out of for once. Cerulean neutral tint dioxzine violet

Adding shadows. Cobalt yellow ochre dioxzine and neutral tint

Suddenly those darks make the first washed look so light. How strange is that?! The blooms aka rocks on the foreground are made by splattering water on the greys once it dries a bit.

And done for now. You can only see a bit of the alizarin smears. Handy the lady has an alizarin top isn’t it!?

Margaret all in for tonite. Michael’s tomorrow for some fixative I hope. Otherwise waiting til I go to Blick this weekend.

Xoxoxo

Tweet Tweet Twice the Fun

April 30, 20214 Comments

A fun ink and watercolor sketch of a sparrow. My fav kind. Wet on wet splattering. Been in Jackson Pollock mode splattering and slinging paint. .

And I did two because it’s twice as much fun. Lamy EF Carbon Platinum Black ink and a permanent fine liner.

Thanks for looking.

Margaret xoxoxo

Blue Bell time

April 23, 2021Leave a comment

About 15×15″ rough Fabriano 300# mixed media. Goauche Watercolor and pastel.

Who would have thought that would ever be a combo you would use together but LOVED the technique the speed and the splashy fun.

Spring bluebells at Castle Howard

Got a little carried away making lines with my sword brush but who knew it made those long splatter marks. Load a sword brush with a lot of paint and water and sling it and you get stripey lines like on the bottom right.

I had my splatter all over the floor feeling my inner Jackson Pollack and the tv and the table and goodness knows where I will find it.

Cobalt and alizarin I think. Oh and cerulean. This was just using a regular brush making lines rolling it. Who knew you could roll a paint brush to make marks?!

Adding greens by making them. Viridian and yellows for the green more splattering and slinging paint

Adding pastel to the trees abs blue and green pastel to make shadows and marks. Then white gouache mixed with yellow. Last thing I added was some cheap Joe’s American Journey sky blue mixes with white gouache. I may go back and add some Andrew’s turquoise mixed with white gouache too and some blue & purple pastel. Maybe

If you ever get a chance to take a class from Robert Dutton do. The man is a wild man with ideas popping out of him like a pot boiling over. Taking a three hour class from him next week. Can’t wait. Had to order some new soft pastels for it from Amazon because we don’t have an art supply store anymore. 😩😩

Margaret xoxoxo

Over the hill

April 16, 2021April 16, 2021Leave a comment

Rather like this. Might be my fav watercolor I have done lately.

Quarter sheet Hahnamuhle Cezanne 140#

Took a fast 1 hr class with Graham Booth sponsored by Shopkeeparty as an ad for his longer paid class next Th. You can also purchase a downloadable video of the session too and have permanent access to it. As I said John at Shopkeeparty is doing a great service to the art community. It was posted on YouTube today.

I have followed Graham on YouTube for a while and do like to paint along with him when I have time energy and like his subject. The videos he posts are shorter but still interesting.

Graham lives in N Ireland. At what other time could you be in Ga and take a class from someone live in N Ireland?! Zoom makes it possible.

The photo. Somewhere in Scotland but could be in the Blue Ridge so that’s what I am going with.

First wash. Sky way to pale.

Always amazed at how it changes when you add some darks. Mix of quin gold and ultramarine. I think.

Hmmm🧐🧐

Splat the buildings were done. Some of the foreground. Cad red on the roofs. Burnt sienna ultramarine for greys. Ultramarine and alizarin for the purple. More green in the foreground. Splattering red for flowers and I think yellow.

And then we were fine. Adding a few shadows and more darks in the foreground.

Zoe telling me to get up yesterday.

Ttyl Margaret xoxoxo

Field of flowers

April 15, 2021April 15, 20212 Comments

You know one of the things That is a good side effect of the pandemic is all the zoom classes with famous artists that you could never afford to take from in person. And no travel. Do it at your favorite painting table. A win win if there is one in this hideous pandemic.

Today I took a class with Keiko Tanabe on shopkeeparty.com. she just zips along. This class went alot better than thenlast one I took with her so I may do another.

Quitting now. I worked on my sky a bit. And splattered a lot with white gouache, cad yw, opera, and some Joe’s Andrew’s Turquoise. Softened a few edges. Lightened a few spots that had gotten too wet to paint the bushes on and gone dark.

The photo

Will try again with a different building on Hahnamuhle rough instead of Kilimanjaro cold press. Let’s see how it does.

The sketch. Not much to it is there?! Kilimanjaro 300# cold press.

First wash. Dry brushing once I remembered to. Oops. Scratching in the field a bit. And splattering the green to simulate followers. The sky omg. Puffballs. Eek.

Progress. Using my cheap Joe’s Scroggys loose goosy, a kind of saber brush, to paint the flowers – all those lines. It also makes great hair, branches and sometimes telephone lines.

Adding details and darks. Trees and bushes. It was still to wet to do a lot of these but I plowed on chasing Keiko.

NEVER drink espresso Before Doing phone lines. Wobbly lines. Sigh.

Finally remembered how to dry brush trees. Added some neutral tint and some yellow ochre and alizarin to the sky. More cobalt too.

Thought it was done. But eeek. That hard edge under the house bushes. Had to wipe them out some.

And done.

If you are interested in taking online classes. Shopkeeparty.com offers all kinds of art classes twice a week. Every Tues am there’s a one hour one that is free to the public on YouTube. There’s also an extensive backlog of videos on YouTube all free for the watching on Shopkeeparty. John Harrison who runs it has been doing these for a year now. Another COVID benefit. He’s in England. His artists are all over the world.

Margaret xoxoxox who should sell some art to pay for the expensive sliding door that’s getting g replaced. Salesman coming today. Eeekk.