Day 364 – Another girl

July 7, 2015July 7, 20153 Comments

Since I already did this post once on the WordPress ap I am hoping it does not post twice or disappear like the last one which disappeared when I tried to schedule it. I guess because I am getting a little crazy…tomorrow will make 365 days of continuous daily blogging AKA ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!! My grandsons third birthday is Saturday – I am in charge of making the cake AND we are leaving for Key West right after the party…HELP HELP!! And making arrangements for pet sitting….oh MY!

After wiping out the girl yesterday I decided to just start a new one. I think I have about 25 sheets of 300# cold press paper so WHY not use them…thats not counting at least two blocks of it..one arches and one Richeson block or is it Stephen Quiller?? Time to use the paper up!!

So I started another girl. She is done on Fabriano 300# cold press and painted with Isabey mops, #2,#8 and brushes, #4-#8…and one #12 Cheap Joes Legends…LOVE all those brushes..start collecting yours NOW!!

Here’s the sketch. Next time I am changing to a darker pencil EVEN if it smears. I didnt notice the chin was a touch too long because the pencil is too light. That is UNTIL I painted it…had to do a little plastic surgery….oops..

The first wash…its one of my best I think …Skin done with Quin Coral and Winsor Yellow which are both transparent.Burnt Sienna and Cerulean for most of the shadows. Hair is any reddish paint I had and a few golds and yellows like Quin gold, quin sienna, burnt Sienna and a little purple a little burnt umber and even orange.

I did surgery on her chin…it was just too long…I used a straight edge brush and clean water and a kleenex to wipe it and lift it…its easy to do on Fabriano which is amazingly forgiving….

Well if it won’t upload on my laptop u can always add it after it’s posted on the ap. Thank goodness it’s done. Between the slow computer the crashing so and my neighbor jack hammering his swimming pool deck I have gotten quite the headache. Sigh.

Then I decided I hated her hair and used a mr clean wedge to just wipe it out….all gone. I actually like it better now….who knew but you cant see it because WPress will NOT upload the image…sigh…only one day to go only one day to go ONLY ONE DAY TO GO…Imagine theres a picture here!!

Next to soften some of the hair around her face…wet and blot!! Sigh….

Helmet hair is NOTTT a good look is it!?

And now her chin looks a little dirty…opps…an easy fix…what i love about watercolor…it will drive you nuts!! :>

I seem to go straight to the dark side with watercolor…I need to stop. I am trying to stop…i wonder if there’s a meeting for that.

Thanks for reading!!!

Margaretxxx

Day 362 details details.

July 6, 2015Leave a comment

Did a great hand today. But darn what happened to her eyes?!

I decided on a do over. There’s a lot I like about this painting but darn the right eye. I did try to fix tomorrow or add it to my bin pile. Lol. Or the compost heap.

A Tip! I sometimes turn paintings into a gray scale photo to check the darks. I also do this when I paint from photographs.

Tomorrow I will post version two after I tinker with her some more.

Thanks for reading

Margaret xxx

Day 352 – Super deluxe Bee

June 25, 20152 Comments

Rommel 6×9″

Decided to give it a work out last nite while watching the Secret Life of Elephants on GPTV last nite. This was the last sketchbI drew off tv the big bull elephant Rommel.

Most of Rommel was painted wet on wet to loose the edges. I downloaded several of Thomas Schallers videos from Northlight. Good deal for $13. Though he does not paint animals I thought why not try out his techniques on this elephant. He’s big on transparent colors, letting the colors blend on the paper and loosing edges by keeping the paint wet. I do wish II had thought to add in some blips of others colors like orange and purple but I can use my handy fine spray bottle and do that later.

This was a very wet painting. The Super Deluxe did not wrinkle anymore than a 140# paper would. I lifted some of the shadows off the left back leg and as usual it was easy to do with this super sketchbook.

Colors used Elephant and dirt – yellow ochre, burnt sienna, and Inathradone blue. Sky cerulean trees green Apatite and Inathridone.

I did a pencil sketch first. As you will see in a bit the sketchbook loves the pencil.

This is the sketchbook. Just in case you did not see the last post about it.

Another sketch of Rommel a huge bull elephant that showed up on the Samburu Reserve in Kenya where the show was filmed.

I really like the way this pencil sketch turned out so I doubt I will paint it. It was done with a cheap HB mechanical pencil from Office Max.

One thing that’s great about sketching off tv is that you can pause it. Only thing I don’t like about pencil sketching is its tendency to smear. I need to spray this with fixative.

Save the Elephants http://savetheelephants.org. The show was all about an effort that is being made in Samburu to increase the numbers of elephants which were dwindling drastically. They seem to be turning around now due to the efforts of Save the Elephants.

I love drawing animals and now want to go to Samburu on a sketch safari. Would that not be fabulous fun?! During dry season they flock to the water holes in Samburu, prime time for sketching or photography.

Think about it. I know I am.

More about the Super Bee tomorrow!!

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 343 – Lorikeets

June 16, 20152 Comments

As perhaps you know I enjoy sketching birds. I drew the lorikeets from a shady spot while I waited for my family to show up at the zoo. For $2 you got a cup of nectar to feed them.

Oddly I like the double page spread as long as he pages are separated. I think it’s because there are six birds. I like odd numbers in compositions.

I drew the big bird first. He was off. The beak too low the biggest error. The eye off. He should have looked like the one to the right. They were great fun to paint. Mixing and slapping greens around. Started with light yellow green. Then added darker and darker greens and blues with bits of mineral Violet to the leaves and the birds.

The left page. I added the tree trunks after I drew them as I did the leaves. I only drew the birds on site. It was fun making up the background as I went. Really like the limbs which are Quin gold mineral Violet and Inathradone blue. They started out a grey of burnt umber and Inathradone blue. How boring. Paint red them wet on wet. Sometimes with Quin gold and mineral Violet on the paint brush at the same time.

Here’s the whole page. Just isn’t quite right. Oh well. Beaks are cad orange and Quin coral. Fun stuff to paint. I just wish I had drawn the red ones. Oh my goodness red from head to toe. How did I miss those.

DY 341 Snuggling and Drawing

June 14, 20154 Comments

Zoe loves to snuggle. Drew this while we were watching CBS Sunday morning. Painted it while listening to Super Soul Sunday my two favorite shows. Noodler Creaper Ahab in my Stillman and Birn Alpha. Wish I had bought a zeta. The paper buckles a lot with washes but will flatten out somewhat when the book is closed. Also the paper does not let you live color without some pilling. No book is perfect but S&B tries hard.

Noodler creaper Ahab Carbon Black ink. Greys – Cerulean and Quin Sienna on the blue side darker grey Quin Sienna and Inathridone blue. Red fur Quin Sienna and Burnt umber w touches of Inathradone blue. Letters and border Quin red and cad orange. Background cerulean and Aureolin yellow. Scarf. Hmm all the above colors and mineral purple. Splattered with cerulean.

TIP!! Paint brushes. Thought you might like to see my favorite brushes, my kolinsky Isabeys. I have six now. – 2 4 6 8 and two big mops a 2 and an 8. They are Charles Reids favorite brushes.

If you think your paintings are too tight get a big mop or the biggest paint brush u can afford. Though I want a huge 12 or 14 Isabey they are very pricey but I am happy with my cheap Joes kolinsky Legend which is a 12 for $65.

Fealin Lin loves her Isabey mops. Lucky lady got hers off the reject table at Cheap Joes for $9 instead of the normal $65 ish.

Ink sketch stage.

Used negative space to keep the legs and nose in proportion. That’s looking at the shapes that surround the object like the hole in the coffee cup handle aka the inside shape that Zoe’s legs form almost a square.

Zoe posing.

And doing her favorite thing. Snuggling!! Couldn’t wait to paint this but hated dislodging her. Now she’s annoyed with me and staying in her bed. Sigh.
Fur soresto flea collar regular collar. She is such a princess. She loves to dress up. Newest scarf a triangle of amy butler fabric.

TIP: I love the bit of fur above the scarf. It’s done by painting lightly with grey. Letting it dry and adding more greys and Blues on top letting each layer dry.

The dark grey under the scarf is the Inathridone and Quin Sienna with dabs of mineral Violet added.

Details of furwith cerulean toothbrush splatter.
More fur and scarf details.
Thanks for reading!!

Margaret and Zoe xxx

Day 319 – Grace and Frankie again!

May 24, 2015May 24, 201513 Comments

i drew this while I was watching Grace and Frankie. Frankie’s hat made her hard to resist. I love a lady in a hat. Remember you can always pause the TV and have the actors pose for you.

Here it is for now. This is in my big 8.5×11 sketchbook.

Actually drawn in pencil. I rarely do that in my sketchbooks.

First face washes.

Adding some cad red light for her clothes. Nfrankie wears the most interesting clothing

Hair. Now that was almost a disaster. Too solid.

Added brown to little worms of color and dots coming off it. Better. Her face is still too delineated n thinking about that. What to do?

The wispy hair is my fav part of this spread.
Jane Fonda. Much smaller than Lillie Tomlin so quickly done.

Almost done.

Done for the moment.
Thanks for reading!

Margaret XXX

Day 318 just a quick post

May 24, 20152 Comments

because I am busy painting. More about that tomorrow.

Cropping can be a good thing. This was a practice sketch. A warm up for painting this sketch. I did not like the way the drawing went.

I liked this sketch much better than the one in the first picture.

This is the whole spread uncut. The sketch of Livia on the left is pretty bad. A warm up for the next sketch. But the good thing about a bad sketch or painting is that it liberates you to slap paint around and have fun. Loved making the drips and applying the sheer colors. Think it helped with this painting. I did the drippy baby painting first. Do you see a connection? Sometimes the most interesting painting gets done on a painting that you no longer care about the way it turns out. The fun stuff in this bad sketch are the dots of the hair and bow on her head the washes and drips from the dress and the luminous center of the spread. Really like that luminous glow and. I used all of that in the lady in the white dress.

Anyway that’s my theory and I am sticking to it. Try it. Let me know what you think!

Thanks for reading.
Margaret XXX

Day 317 – Grace and Frankie

May 23, 2015May 23, 2015Leave a comment

Summertime or Tea Time or Julia. What do you think I should call her?!

11×15″

300# Fabriano

The wonderful costumes on the show Frankie and Grace which I have been binge watching on Netflixs made me want to do a girl in a hat.
I don’t know if you remember but I did a lot of girls in hats back at Easter. I love hats. I just done like the way I look in them. Anybody else line that!?

Now that summer’s approaching its hat time again! And of course a glass of iced tea with mint is required.

Here she is penciled in with a 2HB mechanical pencil and the initial background wash done. Very light washes of several colors all painted while the others were still wet so there are no blooms.

This is after. Added the first cerulean shadows to the dress and Quin coral and aureolin for the skin tones.

Here she is later. Colors added. Alizarin cobalt Burnt Sienna Inathridone and burnt umber Quin burnt sienna Quin gold. You really don’t need a lot of colors to paint a picture.

My favorite part of the painting though the hair is giving the skirt stuff competition. A lot of the colors were applied wet on wet. Others were added as blobs or dry brushed. A lot of fun to paint.

Still lots to do!

Thanks for reading! Go draw a girl in a hat!

Margaret XXX