The Gallant Lady

March 17, 20213 Comments

The Gallant Lady is done for the moment but thinking about working on the sand some more. I put those dark bands almost evenly spaced. Oops.

I was doing a mad online paint along with Randy Hale. This 12×16″ painting was done in 45 minutes. Oh my. A wild chase. Lots of wet juicy color.

The Gallant Lady is a famous 1997 Hurricane Mitch shipwreck off Bimini in the Bahamas. You can read more about her on this link. Hard to believe it’s fallen apart so quickly.

Love the way my sky turned out. It was done with ultramarine of cobalt and then opera was dropped in along with raw umber for the greys.

Randy has a great sky technique. I am terrible at painting skies. But this one I actually like. He’s doing a lot of online teaching as are multiple other artists right now. Such a gift to all of us. Access to these great paintings tees from our own homes.

First layers on. The sand is quin gold burnt sienna and raw umber. I should try to make it look less regular but not sure I care enough to try.

I think I used quin burnt orange on the boat or quin sienna along with raw umber. I don’t know why I don’t use raw umber more because I really like the color.

Water is Thalo blue applied painting downward. Also cobalt teal watered

down like tea. The purple is added after its dry. Coming along. I like that most of the color is transparent. Love transparency in watercolor. Gives a lovely glow.

Darker greens Thalos and purples added to give depth.

Done for now.

This kitty is off to get spayed tomorrow. Don’t ya wanna come help me catch her?!! Hard to believe she used to be a rack of bones. She’s a gorgeous cat now. Don’t you want her. All neutered with shots!!

Margaret xoxoxo

Another wild paint

March 17, 2021March 17, 2021Leave a comment

Boats off shore in blue water. Arches 280# cold press the photo an Italian coastline town

The sketch.

Half done. Orange roofs w a touch of red. Purple buildings w a touch of Van dyke brown. The start of the docks and the tops of the umbrellas. The hill is olive green

Three hours later. Done with every color in the palette in the boats and water. The water is Thalo blue, cobalt turquoise, and cerulean. Hookers under the boat. White gouache for the boat lines and the masts and spars.

Zoe does like some of the kitties. Just not the one who likes her. .

Margaret ready for bed because you really shouldn’t paint two paintings in one day. Xoxoxo

Don Andrews AWS

March 16, 2021March 16, 2021Leave a comment

I took an online zoom class with Don Andrews The Figure in the Lnadscape. I have watched all his available YouTube’s and he was on my bucket list. It cost $35 so I was in. One thing I love about the epidemic is the fact you can stay home and take a class for $35. Normally a class with Don would run $600 for a week.

At the end of class. My figure where is it?! We used a limited palette. Six colors. And i put out his whole list of colors whine whine. I think we only used gamboge, opera pink, cerulean, raw sienna, alizarin, turquoise.

The drawing. Did I say I did not get the 911 to draw it so mine is not right. Too many similar sized rocks.

First wash on a quarter sheet. No that’s not yellow but gamboge which is like a school bus yellow. Yes there’s a drawing under there. A lot of fast and furious painting with a big 1 1/2″ brush. If I had used the half sheet like I was suppose to I would have used a 2″ or even a wider hake brush. Have one of those 3-4″ wide.

As Vlad Yesileyev I think said recently use the biggest brush you can to do the job. And I have always used a big brush. Probably should have used my size 14 sable which I am familiar with not a flat. A better chance of success.

Layering in the midtones. Trying not to wipe out the whites or the midtones. Quite a challenge when you are using a large flat wash brush.

Then the darks which are the same colors just thicker. A cream consistency. I think we did add in a blue. Ultramarine or cobalt. Oops getting hard edges. Not allowed. Sigh.

Painting the water and the figure. He disappeared. Oops. The water reflection is just burnt sienna and ultramarine.

And finished. My rocks could have more greys. Oh well. At least the hard edges are where they are suppose to be. And the rocks are weird shapes. Like the round boulders and the wedge shaped blue rock but that’s because I drew them in about three minutes.

He’s sending us the video so I can paint it again. We get access to it for a month. So now to make myself do it!!

Margaret xoxoxox who actually read a book today instead of painting. The Restoration of Celia Fairchild by Marie Bostwick. One of the characters is based on a friend of mine and the book is dedicated to him so of course I had to read it. A beach read book but fun.

Too tired too

March 12, 2021May 19, 20216 Comments

To finish today.

A day spent in Prague. Still lots to do. List too long to write but… it needs a lot. Oddly I actually like it for once. Usually I don’t like them til the next day.Paint along with Vladislav Yesileyev

Vlads photo

The drawing on a half sheet of Hahnemuhle 140# cezanne.

First wash

Plus the sky. Took about an hour and a half to get to this point.

Really hated it at this stage. Yuck.

Added some details but there are sooo many to do. I will work on it some more manana.

Silly geese started honky at us. No clue why. Must be close to a dozen.

Margaret xoxoxo just tahred.

Sailboat anyone?!

March 11, 2021May 19, 20214 Comments

Paint along with Vladislav Yesileyev. So I thought I was done but I already find one thing to do. Shadow on the bow of one of the boats.

All I can say about today’s painting do NOT use cerulean thinking you are using cobalt. Combined with yellow ochre it makes MUD. Non transparent MUD.

Vlads photo

Vlads sketch.

The sketch on a half sheet of Hahnemuhle 140#

First wash

Working on midtones.

and now.

Margaret done in. Also cleaned up the pantry and the fridge and finished two other paintings. Too busy today!! Xoxoxox

Another foggy day

March 10, 20212 Comments

Arches 280# cold press paper Cheap Joe’s American Journey paint colors indigo, ultramarine, burnt sienna, dioxzine, quin gold and lots of water.

A fun painting to do. I could change several things and betting I will do another one with green fir trees next time.

What would I work on?! Less striped sky. Better firs. But all in all I like it. Masking the birch trees to preserve the whites before I started painting.

I would wear rubber gloves. Eeek. Time for scrubby dubby.

Also might try using some of these paints on another one. “. L-R Daniel Smith Payne’s Grey, Cheap Joe’s Payne’s Grey and Cheap Joes Moonglow

Love the blues in the Daniel Smith and all the purples and blues in the moonglow. Last one is so yum.

Zoe posing like the pretty princess she is. She does love a scarf or two.

Margaret xoxox

Calling It Scrubby Dubby

March 9, 2021March 9, 2021Leave a comment

because I scrubbed at this for over an hour I think. Maybe call it Mountain Mist?!

Before I started scrubbing. Everything was painted wet on wet. The trees were done with the liner and a chunk of kitchens sponge plus splattering. Only two colors were used. Payne’s grey and ultramarine. Arches 140# rough.

I had no idea how to do the fog which I wanted to do the fog because I live on a river that is frequently heavily fogged. I was following a YouTube video with David R Smith to practice for class tomorrow with my new liner brushes.

All my tools used to paint this. Red handled brushes are the scrubbers.

I was scratching my head when o realized his supply list for tomorrow said two scrubbers. On the video he did a tree with a Mr Clean Eraser. After scrubbing with the scrubbers for about an hour I realized duh. Use the Mr Clean. If it could lift off a birch tree it could lift off mist. I finished not long after that.

I used the scrubbers to make wispy strands of fog floating off the river. Yes there are wisps if you look. 😘

And done. Time to use the palette knife to loosen it from the block of paper.

Margaret xoxox

Sailing down the Dee

March 8, 2021March 8, 2021Leave a comment

An old derelict boat on the side of the river. Today in my inbox there was an email from Etcher.com to pay $5.50 for access to drawing a boat with Ian Fennelly. I was willing to throw five dollars away in case it was bad. Well it was and it wasn’t. NO PHOTO to draw from. What the heck. So I went to Ian’s IG feed and did a screen shot.

The video also did weird things. I watched it in a window a little bigger than a postcard. If it restarted once it restarted four times. Never going back to where you were. Groan.

Here’s his. Love the silly birds. Seagulls of a sort.

First thing u do is lay out the shape using markers to fix it in your mind.

Then you draw it with a midtones grey tombow. I think this is a 25.

I finally made a key to the shades of my nine shades grey tombows. Got tired of opening each of them up.

So I got bored and went ahead of the video. The video was very cumbersome. If you had to restart it always went back to the beginning. WHAT?!!

My footprints got out of control. As a friend quipped they looked like elephant tracks. Eeekk.

What to do what to do. So much work and a massive screwup.

White pentel gel pen to the rescue. I may add some white watercolor paint to it also.

Here are all the pens. The tombows and pentel permanent liners. Mostly used the .3 on this piece.

Margaret watching Haregan and Oprah. Not sure I will stick with it. Hmmm. Xoxoxo

Around the World in 60 Seconds

March 5, 2021March 5, 2021Leave a comment

Drawing each icon of their country for 60 seconds each with Danny Gregory today on YouTube. He had a slide show of each of the icons that let you view it for 60 seconds. Then on to the next one.

Quite the challenge. Also trying to get them all on one page was a challenge. Eeek. And no time to plan. Double eeek.

So not bad considering EXCEPT the first time I didn’t realize it was suppose to be on ONE page. I used SIX!!

These are quite large. The sketchbook – a handprint journal is 5 1/2x 8″.

This set was drawn with my pentel brush pen which is always fun but makes a big thick line. I only used two colors. Quin gold and cobalt teal. Together they made a great mucky green.

So second time around I used my Namiki fude. Love drawing with them making thin or thick lines easily. Check out the weird tip on it. Does a great job.

No I didn’t cheat. I didn’t pause the video either time except to get the dog in. And then I started it right back up.

It’s time for pot kitties again. They have grown a lot. Halley looks gorgeous with an orange glow from the sunset on her back.

Margaret xoxoxo

Every day a sunrise

March 4, 2021Leave a comment

Making mist in the blue ridge. Arches 280#cold press. Cheap Joe’s American Journey paint.

Took photos of the process today. But it might be easier if you wanted David R. Smiths YouTube videos. This is the short one. Then the longer more involved one. Or you could sign up for his online class next Tuesday. Should be fun. His students give him rave reviews.

First layer wet the paper add yellow sun red ring and cobalt. Spray it with a spatters spray. Dry it.

First row of trees. Wet under the trees and spatter again. Lift some color form the bottom w a thirsty brush. Aka dry brush which will suck up the paint making the mist. Dry after the colors run and mix.

Repeat on the left.

And so on and on. Repeat repeat. Repeat. Getting darker with each layer. Load bottom of trees w water. Paint the trees. Spatter tops w water. Lift some off bottoms w a thirsty brush. And dry.