Day 1032 That bouquet

May 19, 2017May 20, 20172 Comments

Thought I would change up the title! Lol.

The bouquet is definitely on the wane.

Finally one that I am pleased with everything. Well almost. Only took five years of practice, three classes of fifteen days and we won’t discuss the $$ spent on classes and art supplies! A valuable painting.

Filling up the page like Bonnard would do.

The ubiquitous tea pot is gone. It was too big and too fat. Give me a nice juicy navel orange any day. I spent a lot of time rearranging the fruit. They were all lined up either vertically or horizontally every time I drew them. And they started out way too big.

In the sketch you can see the fruit is different than the final painting.

Bytw of u haven’t got the audible ap get it and download some great books to listen to while you paint. I listened to War Brides a thrilling world war 2 story set in England. Full of spies Nazis bombings and of course a love story or two and war time marriages.

Paper Fabriano 140# 18×22. An odd sized old block that I have had for three years since my first Charles Reid class in Atlanta. Should have saved one of my first paintings I did with him. This one is a big improvement.

Colors used. The splatter was the soup in the plate under my water bucket from painting all day. Perfect grey.

Colors used Winsor yellow, ds carmine, cobalt violet, mineral violet, oxide of chromium, viridian?, cerulean, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, cad orange, cad red light or scarlet lake, sap green.

Ttyl Margaret xoxox

Day 1025 Its Saturday

May 13, 20172 Comments

But I am not home. Still on the road in Sapphire Valley. The painting of Andrea and Harley the Freisian will have to wait til I get home to finish but I am really tickled with it so far.

Paper Arches 300 paint mostly Holbein and Daniel Smith.

She took 2-3 hours to draw. Thought she would never show up. The horse was comparatively a piece of cake. Initial wash of flesh-Carmine and yellow ochre. Burnt sienna and cerulean shadows.

I decided she needed some more pink on her cheeks and added some carmine. The shadows of ultramarine blue and the flesh color are looking SCARY.

The red hair helps but still a little scary. Carmine cad orange pyrrole mineral violet and burnt sienna. A few ultramarine shadows.

Her top is mineral violet alizarin and ultramarine blue. I let it dry and brushed some washed out cerulean to knock back whites.

Harley painted with ultramarine blue and burnt umber. Pants ultramarine blue , cerulean and mineral violet.

I just slapped ultramarine blue and burnt umber on Harley with bits of mineral violet to get that splotchy look on his face. Mane is same colors just not as heavy and a bit of cerulean near the ears.

Bridle Quin gold, Quin burnt Orange and burnt sienna. The gems cerulean and cobalt violet. The last two colors were also used for the shading on her foot plus burnt sienna.

I also added some masking fluid to save the water drips.

Added oxide of chromium to make water reflections on his side and used cerulean ultramarine blue plus burnt umber slapping them on to cover his chest and sides.

Really liking this painting but going to have to wait til I get home to finish them.

Margaret hanging out with my grandkids. Xoxoxoxo

Day 2014 I am HERE!!

May 2, 20175 Comments

In Boone NC at Cheap Joes. Hanging out with Charles Reid and his adorable wife Judy. And Joe Miller aka Cheap Joe is here too. Such great people. And my friend Mike and her husband Alan.

In the class of 18 we have had the first of May class with at least the same 7 or 8 people now for three years so we are all getting to be friends. Several of them were in my class in Charlotte too – a small world of watercolor painters.

So what did we paint today?! FLOWERS AND more FLOWERS.

This is Charles’ painting from today. He takes a break every 20 minutes. It took him maybe two hours to paint this. Down by 11:30. Sigh. One day.

This is what he was painting. Judy said they had large decoy collections at their house in Nova Scotia. No surprise there. He always paints his decoys.

His paint box. This box costs about $500. He finally bought it because he was going thru $80 Holbein palettes like mine every two years. This one will last him forever.

Ok so what did I paint today?! This is it. Well one of them. Half sheet of Fabriano 300# cold press. My almost Charles Reid!!

Ttyl. Time for bed. All this painting is exhausting. Margaret xoxoxo

Day 970 Avenging Angel

March 17, 20174 Comments

Happy St Patrick’s Day!! Time to wear the green.

Mixed media 15×22. 140# Kilimanjaro watercolor paper.

Got up at five am and started working on a not too great watercolor of Ilaina. The heads too small. And her beautiful long hair was pinned up.

I started journaling while listening to Robert Holden on Hay House. He’s the happiness guru. Good way to start your day.

Then I stamped her and collaged her. The wings were scraps that just fell next to her shoulders. That’s a sign isn’t it that she wanted to be an angel?!

Next came the paint. On her eyes. Added hair. Scribbled on her with my Prismacolor art sticks. Bytw I went for the black one and ended up with the dark blue one.

This angel wants what she wants. Then I added the red Prismacolor. Didn’t want her too precious as angels can be.

More paint. More scribbling. Back and forth. Scribbled on her face with a 4B pencil both writing and defining her face.

BOOM She was done. At least for now. She might decide differently.

Ttyl. Off to the parade. 🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 425 -a Tutorial – That bacKgRouD

September 7, 2015September 7, 2015Leave a comment

Ilenia Kilimanjaro #140 cold pressed 22×30 -for sale email me at m c m h u n t @ me.c o m of you need her.

Or how many ways can you spell disaster?! Disasters are hard to fix when you paint with watercolor but sometimes you can if you are patient.

Yesterday I said I would post how I did the backgrounds on these two paintings of Ilenia. It involves ALOT of water and dripping paint.
Ilenia Fabriano #140 cold pressed 12x 18-for sale email me at m c m h u n t @ me.c o m of you need her.

This was the background originally on last weeks painting. What was I thinking?!

Try lifting color next time you have a disaster. If it’s cold pressed paper you can lift the color. Some paper does it better than others. Fabriano does it best. The cheapest source of fabriano I have found is Cheap Joes. Cheap Joes Kilimanjaro also does a good job of lifting though not as good a job as Fabriano.

Don’t forget Hot Press papers will not lift at all. Worst ever including my beloved Fabriano. I once mixed up some hot press fabriano with my cold press and used it accidently. How many ways can you spell disaster?!

This is basically how I did the backgrounds in the pictures. You may have to repeat the steps. hookers green size 12 sable legend I had the same reaction to that hookers green in this weeks paintings background. What was I thinking. Even worse the green is staining so I had to use other colors to get rid of it.

Blotting off that Ick green.

So how to do that? First how I arrived at the background.

Adding more water to lift the paint.

More blotting with Kleenex. No puffs allowed. They have lanolin on them.

Adding yellow ochre to kill the green.

And a little burnt umber.

Splattering soupy burnt sienna with my Legend 12 sable.

The spatters melt out because the paint is wet.

Then I repeat the above steps blotting off color and adding more til I like it.

Now what did I do to get rid of this too dark color. I hit it with the spray bottle, let it sit a few minutes and started blotting it off with Kleenex or paper towel. It gets to be a drippy mess and it usually ends up on the floor.

And it ended like this. I did splatter the background again. I think the colts I used were alizarin, mineral Violet, burnt sienna, Inathradone blue and cobalt.

Ps don’t forget to wipe the drips off the floor before you track them everywhere.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 416- It’s Saturday again!!

August 29, 2015Leave a comment

You know what that means – Life Modeling at USC Aiken. I am very happy with my painting today. Ilena might get a few tweaks but she’s done for now.

It was a great pose and the drawing went well. I didn’t even use head measurements til the end just to check if she was in good order. It took about twenty minutes to draw this sketch.

TIP: The drawing was started with the shoulders matching the diagonal line of the models shoulders. Same for the arms and leg angles. You imagine drawing a straight line thru the shoulders and start with that line.

The outline of the head was added still matching the angles of the models head.

Here she is after about an hour of painting. Still a lot to do but looking good. The rust color is Quin Sienna or burnt orange. Not sure which. Flesh is Quin coral with a dab of yellow ochre added. The Blues are mostly cobalt. Hair burnt umber and ultramarine blue.

You really don’t need a lot of colors to paint people.

Everybody voted no to a light blue background.

Then it got a little dark. Oopps. Turning it upside down and allowing water to lift the color fixed the background. Along with a little blotting.

The. I had ring around the model. A NO NO.

I fixed that by adding bits of colors around the model and the ring disappeared.

Her current incarnation. Thanks for all the help and advice from my peanut gallery Ruth, Mike, and Tom!!
Thanks for reading. Go forth and draw!

Margaret xxx

Day 409 – Life modeling

August 22, 2015August 22, 2015Leave a comment

Having fun at dripping paint today because when things are not going well that’s when you get to have fun with the watercolor paint. You can’t ruin it if it’s already messed up.

A list of today’s problems:

Could not get myself together today to draw Erica.

My mechanical pencil had no lead. OPPS.

Borrowed a pencil from Tom. Sharpened off center so it ran out quickly.

Couldn’t find my glasses.

Maybe I needed to go back to bed and start again?! But I loved her pose today and the wicker chair so I kept slogging along at it.
Between all of that I got her roughed in without loosing a foot. The legs stayed where they belonged but what about those arms. They were both too short. Great thing about Fabriano. You can life color off with an old paint brush.

Notice how short HER right arm is in this pic? What was I thinking. Got my old oil paint brush out lifted the background and now her arm is better.

Had trouble getting her head right too. Charles Reid has a rule. Never make the head smaller than four inches. It’s just too difficult to paint if it is. But smart me drew a head that might be an inch and a half at most. It hd to be small to get the whole body in. Oh well. I won’t do that again.
She is done for today. That does not mean that tomorrow I might not get up and scrub her off the paper. Or change her in some way. But for now. DONE.

Oh wait. I think it needs a little turquoise.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 396- Sweet Bear

August 9, 2015August 10, 2015Leave a comment

Bear was my sons sweet huge 85 lb. pit bull rescue who wandered into our lives about two years ago.

One spring day he followed Ben home and refused to leave. It didn’t take him long to move from the front porch to the bed and the sofa.

He was hard to say no too. Bear would really rather be a lap dog than a porch dog.

I started to draw him whenever I visited. His brindle due was always a challenge.

I drew him in ink.

I drew him in ink and watercolor.

I tried to draw him in an artsy manner with just his red hound dog eye showing.

I drew him in smuged ink.

And another watercolor.

I sent him to the corner when he begged while I was cooking where he was mournful.

I journaled about him. Bear was a wonderful dog and model who contracted a terrible cancer which led to his passing away a week ago. We will all miss Mr Bear. We are glad he came into our loves and we hope he is out chasing a ball in Heaven where he is waiting for his daddy. He is missed!!

Thanks for reading.

Margaret Bears grandma whose glad she Sketcher him a lot!! ️Xxx

Day 383 – on the road again!!

July 27, 2015Leave a comment

The long road home. Two days of driving from Key West to Atlanta.

Amazing sunsets

Thought I would share some of the highlights of our trip.

The ghost
hunt
tour with Michael
Creepy but fascinating. You do hunt for ghosts. 😳

the Lloyds tropical bike tour and

Analise and her

food tour YUMMMMM
The Papas

And sitting at Mallory square during the eight mile hike. THINK SWEAT!!

Eating at a few of our fans. Caroline’s on Duval super wait staff salad was the best we ate. Bamboozled salad.

Blue Heaven Thomas and Petronia Chickens and wonderful breakfast of eggs Benedict with pink shrimp. And a band in a funky spot including a chicken cemetery.

Louies Backyard. The best food on the island. Expensive but deliciousness. Lunch is a cheaper option.

Hogfosh Grill on Stock Island. Hogfosh Tacos of course.

Buzzards Roost in Key Largo. Recommend their Mahi Mahi wrap. Gorgeous view of Garden Cove.

Another sunset.

Stay tuned for more Key West. I only have 1500 photos!!!

Thanks for reading!!!

Margaret xxx

Day 380 – Busy Day

July 24, 2015July 24, 2015Leave a comment

working on a commission. Got up so early to get a start I actually was worn out and took a nap in the bed. I always nap on the sofa IF I take a nap.

I was out at 6:45 taking photos of the dawn.

Then I actually cooked breakfast.

After that we were off to the Hemingway look alike contest at 9 at the Cypress House.

Very odd being surrounded by a bunch of white bearded guys.

They usually have about 75 entries.

You can look like a young Hemingway but most of the guys were older look alikes with white beards.

Lots of pics for painting bearded guys in hats now. Been wanting some since Fealin Lins class.

Last years winner. A funny guy. Not sure of his name. He got a medal which is the red ribbon hanging backwards around his neck.
Then I came home to get to working on the commission. Could not find my full sketchbook of Key West anywhere. I needed it to make a bigger painting of one of the sketches. Thank goodness I had good photos and got busy.

Took a break and went to eat at the Hogfosh grill. We were gonng to a shrimp place on stock island but atrip advisor review from two days ago said dogs were all over and eating at the table. We decided to got to HogFish were we knew what to expect.

Before we left we searched the trunk in the daylight and there was my sketchbook. Thanks goodness.

Here’s what I am working on.