Bird of the day well actually

February 18, 2023February 18, 20234 Comments

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.

Margaret ready for bed xoxoxox

The daily bird

February 16, 2023Leave a comment

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!

Margaret xoxoxox

Practice practice.

February 13, 2023Leave a comment

Flamingo from Zoo Atlanta. 9×12” cp fluid. Mostly quin gold and quin rose w cobalt cerulean and pimonite. Oh inanthrodone and Payne’s grey on beak.

Practice for a larger half sheet Flamingo. Also practice to make Shelley Pryors technique my own.

Margaret watching the super bowl. Xoxoxo

Painting w Stan Miller

February 11, 2023February 11, 20232 Comments

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.

Margaret in rainy SC xoxoxo

Done

February 8, 2023February 8, 2023Leave a comment

Daisies so I tweaked it a bit more today. I have to say Irena Roman gave the best directions. I wrote them down during her session at Watercolorlive 2023 then offline I religiously followed them. The only thing I would do differently is make a bigger one. All that work and it’s only 1/4 sheet of fabriano 300# cold press. Next one at least a half sheet.

Usually pouring you mix the colors on this page. Can’t wait to try Linda Bakers approach but this one you mixed them in a cup, masked the figure and sprayed the sheet with a spray bottle then flooded it with three layers of color.

The masking was endless ruined a brush in the process and took a half an hour of hard running to get off but it’s definitely interesting to play with. Didn’t make a huge mess.

Colors used. Well only five or six. Inanthrodone blue dioxizine purple viridian ultramarine violet and quin gold for the flooding.

Cad yellow aureolin cobalt teal and a few oddball greens for the leaves and details. Thalo blue added to the mix of blues for the jar.

I actually used a 2 and a 4 Isabey kolinski painting these. I don’t know when I last used those brushes. An 8 is small for me!

Margaret xoxoxo who forgot to upload this yesterday. Oops.

@IrenaRoman and @ericrhodes #300fabriano #watercolor #transparentwatercolor #watercolorlive2023 #watercolorartist #watercolorpainting #watercolorsketch #watercolorist #watercolorillustration #watercolordaily #watercolorpaintingartist

Hand is now cramping

February 6, 2023February 6, 20234 Comments

Almost done. Twelve hours or so just today on this 1/4 sheet. Fabriano Artistico cold press 300#

Endless drawing. Third time. First trace was wrong second draw was lifted by masking. Spent three hours redrawing. Or was it four. 🙃🙃🙃😵‍💫

Now to figure out where to put the masking on the bottle. 😳😵‍💫

Jar masked. Kept dipping the brush in soapy water and drying it off. Also dumped the masking in the lid. Went much easier after I did that. I think asking the whole letter and lifting the mask to paint the dark will be easier than masking the highlight around each one. We shall see

Masking on jar removed. I think it looks awful. so hard to soften those edges that masking leaves.

Quitting for now. Need to work on the jar some more esp 1858 BUT my hands and shoulder are DONE.

Finally standing back from it i think it looks amazing if I do say so myself. since it’s sucked up most of my life for the last few days glad it does.

Margaret xoxoxo where’s the chocolate?

Watercolor Live 2023 post hmm

February 5, 2023Leave a comment

Started working on Irena Romans class today.

She showed us her home studio today. I want one like hers.

The background is poured. A whole lot of options for messy Margaret to flood the world with blue. Eeek.

A whole Lot Of Masking. Ruined the old paint brush I was using. Oh well.

One pour down and two to go. So far so good. It’s a mix of inathradone blue ultramarine violet dioxizine purple and viridian.

Bytw I covered my chair seat which is cloth w plastic put on my old slippers and an apron wished I had a plastic one. 😳

Pour number 2. Looks dangerous and a total mess.

Number two dry. Supposedly it keeps the paint transparent. Not to sure abt that.

Last pour is now drying. I added quin gold to the mix per the instructors directions. Amazing how dark it got.

Last pour and no catastrophes yet!! 🙃😂. Next up removing all that masking. Can’t see how this was better than a wash. Hmm

Be sure to check out Irenas site. Her paintings are phenomenal.

In the middle of all this I was making my friend Mikes Cream of chicken rice and mushroom soup. DH said it was the best soup ever. He even cleaned up the kitchen. Yeah. Margaret xoxoxox

Matthew Bird Still Life

February 4, 2023February 4, 20232 Comments

Matthew Birds realistic still life. While I like the looks I am not fond of all the masking and layering. I kept making mistakes and having to start over. My fault not his of course.

Attempt #3 was best. I kept my lights on most of the apricots. The rock looks good. Background wash might need another layer. Last.

Three looks much better in person. I saved almost all the lights on the fruit but the iPhone flattened them out darn it.

Attempt number 2 screwed up the darks on the front of the stone. Painted it all alizarin. Oops off to a bad start from the first. Fabriano 300# cold press. Background washes hmm does it need more? I do like the bluey black.

Attempt #1 140 fluid cold press paper. Not great for lots of washes. What was I thinking using a 140 for all those layers of washes?! Will probably finish it sooner or later. Someone will want it.

Still think they need more background washes. Might just mix up some green alizarin and indigo and give them two layers but I do like the blue shining thru the back. Really pretty in person.

Best of all. Those Dynasty faux squirrel reservoir brushes. Have had them for a couple of years and never use them. They worked great for those endless lines on the bowl. I loaded the 12 once and did ALL THE LINES WITH IT and the hearts too. Who would have thought??

My sweet kitty Haley being a good girl this am.

Margaret tahred from painting all day. Xoxoxoxo

Santorini

February 3, 2023Leave a comment

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.

Margaret whose tahred xoxoxo

If at first u don’t succeed

February 2, 2023Leave a comment

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.