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 424 – Yes it’s SuNdAy!!!

September 6, 2015September 6, 2015Leave a comment

Ilenia full sheet 22x 30″ 140# Kilimanjaro for sale. Email me at m c m h u n t @ me.co m if she needs to come live with you.

As you may know I usually post the life modeling session on Saturday but Miss Ilenia was misbehaving. Or maybe it was the painter?! 😳

Before I start wanted to remind you that if you haven’t seen Mr Yow doing Chinese painting on my Facebook wall you should. It’s only 4 minutes. https://m.facebook.com/MargaretMccarthyHunt?ref=bookmarks

I am going to make a mental checklist or maybe I should write it down to review before I start painting. Meditate on it. Put it under my pillow and sleep on it. Put it on the bathroom mirror.

She was drawn with a #4 Isabey sable watercolor brush w a grey that was mixed with everything in the corners of my palette. Twenty minutes sketching. When you use a paintbrush on watercolor paper you have to think about where each line goes. Trying for no do overs.

ChEcKlIsT:

No head smaller than 4″ EvEr!!

Shoulders even?!

Arms the right length?!

Eat in the right position?!

Start painting on the face first. (The face makes me nervous so I tend to start on it after I do the body. NOT good because in a two hour drawing session I run out of time. Since I tend to slap paint on when I get in a hurry guess what I do?! Not a good look on a face!! )

And last shadows even across the face?? (Aka shadows on face should NOT Be darker than the body. Gives a beard effect. Not good on a pretty young girl!!!)

Ps only use burnt sienna and cerulean on a young girls face or the shadows get too heavy. Charles Reids rule and he is THE Master!! Www.charlesreidart.com

The first forty minutes including sketching. A Quin coral and french ochre wash. Both are transparent. Raw Sienna and cerulean shadows.

Next forty minutes. Mistake number one on the face. Eyebrow and eye too dark and heavy. She had dark eyes but using burnt inner and ultramarine made them TOO dark. Next time repeat the mantra burnt sienna and cerulean only. The eyebrow is too long too. No shadows Around the eye make them look pasted on.

Also lost the edges of the back of her hair so she would not look cut out and glued down. It makes your eye look at her face not her hair.

After Life modeling. Two hours. I put her down in the parking lot and took her pic in the noonday sun.

She needs some background to make her PPP. I chose green because it’s the opposite of pink or red. But oh my gosh what’s wrong with that face?!

Lots of minor things. Eat was a little low. The mouth too down turned. The eye shape off. Forehead a hair too narrow and TOO round. Otherwise she was looking great.

After a lot of twitching around I am happy with her. Shoot me an email if she needs to come live at your house!!

Now my biggest question is crop closer or leave full sheet?! Leaning toward the cropped version. It follows the rules of thirds and I like it best. Which one do you like best?!

Tomorrow will tell you how I did the background. It too was rough for a while but really like it ALOT now.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 413 – Drawing Target

August 26, 2015Leave a comment

Excited my sketch yesterday was sold. HURRAH!!

Yesterday there were herds of people check out at the Evans Ga Target. I got THE table with a view of both Starbucks and the check out lines. With 15 minutes to kill before time for class at the Y I drew these people.

Done with my Pentel brush pen. Like the way most of them turned out. When drawing these life is going too fast to think about anything but capturing the gestures as quickly as possible so accidents happen like the girl in the gutter.

Here it is in ink.

I also started another strip.

Remember all these figures took about 18 minutes tops.

Here’s a couple more of those pages. More tomorrow!! Enjoy!!

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 413 – Drawing Target

August 26, 2015Leave a comment

Excited my sketch yesterday was sold. HURRAH!!

Here it is in ink.

I also started another strip.

Remember all these figures took about 18 minutes tops.

Here’s a couple more of those pages. More tomorrow!! Enjoy!!

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 412 People time

August 25, 2015August 26, 20155 Comments

SOLD!!!

I drew this the other day when we had breakfast at the inner bean. A lot of times when I try to draw people like this I end up with a mess. For once I started in the front and drew to the back.

Today sketching at Costco I did the opposite. A bit of a mess.

Since these are generally drawn in ink you don’t get a do over when the figures over lap shelves. If you start in the front not such a problem. I started with the left bottom corner.

Contrast was a problem too. All the figures were blending into each other on the left.

I converted it to black and white. With the color gone it was easy to see where the figures wee blending in. Bottom left was especially bad.

I uped the contrast aka value which I think improved life at the bean.

Just remember my chickies it’s all about value.

An old page of dads on how to draw people I thought u might find interesting.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 410 – More of those chickens!!

August 23, 2015August 23, 20159 Comments

Courthouse Chickens Key West

Where else but in Key West would you find chickens at the courthouse?!

I drew these toward the end of our stay in Key West when I went on a sketchathon starting at the Key West Wildlife Center and ending at Higgs Beach sketching the people as they walked by in front of the car.

Fast sketching requires a good flowing pen – chickens birds and people don’t hold still for long!! I use my Noodler Craper Ahab or one of my two brush pens – the Kuretake or the Pentel. The first two are always loaded with Carbon Platinum Black ink which dries so rapidly. I frequently paint them later especially if the weather is extreme like in the tropical heat of key west.

I thought you might like to see the chickens before I painted them.

While in Key west I saw a lot of Chinese style brush work paintings of animals in one gallery on Duval. And decided to try it out on the long chicken strip. I liked it so much I did it on these pages too.

There are really only a few pure colors used on the chickens. Quin gold, Quin Sienna, Quin burnt orange, Inathradone, Quin red and alizarin period. All the colors were allowed to combine on the page. Painting was done with my large cheap joes legend #12 sable even the large splatters.

Tip: To make the splatters. Choose a color or two and make a soupy mix. Fillup a large brush and gently tap over the painting. Yes I have a toothbrush but I always get little splatters not big juicy ones with it.

Probably due to heat stroke I was imagining what the chickens might be thinking as I drew. What would I think if I were a courthouse chicken?! Look there goes another felon?! Wonder what they did?! Hope I win my case?!

Before I started drawing chickens I thought roosters were mean ready to attack you at any second like the ones we had as kids. When get are with the chicks and be a they are very different beasts. They are not aggressive. Feed them and they defer to the babies and hens to eat. They also stand vigil while the hen takes care of the babies. Who knew??!

Thanks for reading.

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 406 – the Pier

August 19, 2015August 19, 2015Leave a comment

The Pier at Garden City

This was sketched on the pier at Garden City. A very long pier. The late evening sun glinting off the boards was turning the dock to gold.

A bit of the pier

People were everywhere. Some sitting some walking enjoying the breezes others waiting to get weaves done in their hair. Who knew weaves were in demand on the piers of the Grand Strand?!

Put these together to see the whole pier.

And of course you guessed that gold is Quin gold. The people’s shadows were made with a soupy Inathradone and burnt umber mix that I let drip from the feet by propping the sketch book up. I added burnt sienna to some of the figures to give them a tan. Tans are big at the beach.

I seem to be into drips and splatters lately. I find the splatters are easier if I load a large brush like my #12 Legend sable brush with a soup of darker colors like blues and the Browns. Sometimes together sometimes separate.

Tip of the day!! Just remember splattering can make a BIG mess!! BeWaRe!!! It will go everywhere.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 399 -Garden City

August 13, 2015August 13, 20159 Comments

The swarms of people at Garden City were calling to my pen saying draw draw draw. If I hadn’t been drawing this is what I would have been doing consuming books like peanuts.

I really like this painting a lot. The water is more of a Caribbean blue than an Atlantic blue but I like it. It’s done in cheap joes Andrea turquoise, cobalt, purple, and a bright yellow green. The sky is cerulean and cobalt.

The sand is really grey when it’s wet. It’s done with burnt umber Inathradone and yellow ochre.

Bytw the horizon line is really straight but the books would not lie flat. The only fault I can find with a Strathmore 500 mixed media sketchbook.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret ️xxx heading out on another trip. Thank goodness for house sitters!!

Day 397 – Louies Back Yard

August 10, 2015Leave a comment

Louies Back Yard Key West

Whenever I go on a trip there always seems to be some leftover sketches that don’t quite get painted. I call these making my own coloring book because sooner or later I go back and paint them.

Right now I have six from Key West and 8 or ten from Garden City to paint. Hopefully I will knuckle down on the next few days and get some knocked out. Several of them I really like including more of the court house chickens. Of course you said she has more chickens to paint lol.

This is one I got around to painting. Louies should have about ten stars on its sketch.

Mahi Mahi with Mango sauce.

The food is superb the servers outstanding and the views are amazing. Hands down our favorite for divine food. Go at lunch to save a little on the bill!!

A not to be beaten combo of great food and gorgeous view.

After we ate inside we sat on the back deck enjoying the breeze and the view of the Florida straits.

The view from out table.

My divine sautéed yellowfin tuna a la Julia Childs flounder in Julie and Julia. I have the recipe. I guess I need to turn it into a recipe sketch. Easy and oh so delicious. We used to make it with striped and hybrid. To think I almost didn’t get it because I am tired of tuna a la Charlie in a can. Not the same at all!!

My sisters Beef. Also fab.

My creme brûlée with a brownie buried in it. Melt in your mouth deliciousness.

A coconut orange cream pie like nothing you have ever eaten. The creme brûlée wins the desert contest BUT if you go twice like we did you can try both!!