Undoubtably the best time to sketch my grandson is when he’s watching Disney. He becomes almost immobile occasionally moving his body but mostly staring at the screen.
These were drawn in my Aquabee sketchbook with my Lamy fine point loaded with Carbon Platinum Black ink. I have been meaning to paint them as soon as my cold clears up. Hiking in the rain in the WNC Blue Ridge is not conducive to good health. Kerchoo!!
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Undoubtably the best time to sketch by grandson is when he’s watching Disney. He becomes almost immobile occasionally moving his body but mostly staring at the screen.
These were drawn in my Aquabee sketchbook with my Lamy fine point loaded with Carbon Platinum Black ink. I have been meaning to paint them as soon as my cold clears up. Hiking in the rain in the WNC Blue Ridge is not conducive to good health. Kerchoo!!
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
A recent challenge to paint an acrylic self portrait in Fauvism style using a snake of complimentary colors with impasto brush strokes. Impasto is thick paint which can show the method of application. In this case a hog bristle brush.
This has been a lot of fun. Try it you might like it.
Fauvism means wild beast. Matisse was the best known painter in this school although Seurat’s pointilism is also a part of this school. Bright jarring colors were used by these artists.
Some hallmarks of Fauvism are
We started with a wash of background color on gessoed hardboard aka Masonite and then drew the portrait with a paint brush using a complimentary color(red) to the green background.
This is a color snake using two complimentary colors red and green plus white for tints. These were the only colors we could use. All the above colors were made from those three colors.
After the painting was underway it was ok to add a related color. Such as orange.
Here is the portrait after two hours painting. I left a lot of the original red lines showing thru.
I used the color bluer greens in the shadows and the yellower ones in highlights.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
A recent challenge to paint an acrylic self portrait in Fauvism style using a snake of complimentary colors with impasto brush strokes. Impasto is thick paint which can show the method of application. In this case a hog bristle brush.
This has been a lot of fun. Try it you might like it.
Fauvism means wild beast. Matisse was the best known painter in this school although Seurat’s pointilism is also a part of this school. Bright jarring colors were used by these artists.
Some hallmarks of Fauvism are
We started with a wash of background color on gessoed hardboard aka Masonite and then drew the portrait with a paint brush using a complimentary color(red) to the green background.
This is a color snake using two complimentary colors red and green plus white for tints. These were the only colors we could use. All the above colors were made from those three colors.
After the painting was underway it was ok to add a related color. Such as orange.
Here is the portrait after two hours painting. I left a lot of the original red lines showing thru.
I used the color bluer greens in the shadows and the yellower ones in highlights.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Zaneigayha Chelon group
Which you will be seeing for a while this week. I sketched ALOT at Arts in The Hearts a big annual juried arts and crafts festival in downtown Augusta.
These were drawn at the Eighth Street Stage. She was a great little singer with her family for backup.
Got to run to class. May amend the post later today.
Thanks for reading!!
Margaret xxx
My friend Ruth and I went sketching at the eighth street stage during arts in the hearts. These ladies were sitting in a nearby row like peas in a pod and I could not resist sketching them. Less than five feet from me.
They were too cute. Since I was doing undercover drawing the features are off. Their noses were no were near that big! I was really trying not to get caught.
This was painted with my large Isabey squirrel Mop #8 on a vertical easel.
Will Post some of the bands tomorrow. Yes I did draw two Of the bands as they sang and played their hearts out. They were really quite good.
Hanging a show at the inner bean Thursday. Come by and check it out.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Last week I sat in the corner at Costco’ s cafe area drawing the lunch crowd. There’s one table that has a 180 view and SCORE. I hid behind my purse.
I really like the way the wall of boxes turned out in the background. And the way most of the people turned out. I actually painted out one guy whose drawing went astray. Can you find him!?
It was also hard getting all the bodies with legs as they came and went.
Next time I will draw something easy like my polish sausage and the drink.
This should be a fun place for urban sketching. Or at least getting pics of the roustabouts working. Check their webpage for when they visit near you.
Thanks for reading. Class tomorrow. Busy day!!
Margaret xxx
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
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:
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
Update. Painted for a couple more hours.
So far
This painting had been fermenting in my brain all week. And really ever since I saw it. Love the grunge look of it.
And always liked this photo of my middle son. I started over for two reasons. The first one was on 140# and he had no feet. This is on a full sheet Crescent watercolor board. Heavy stuff.
The feet thing did it for me. Lol. Do over. He needed feet. And I had trouble with his head. Still too big. As I said on my fb wall watercolor is a roll of the die. Sometimes you win sometimes not. Like the new one better anyway.
Here’s the sketch of it. All those grey lines worried me. Hard to have transparent color and those lines not show. I think they are going away. I HOPE.
The face was a hash of lines.
Professor wants you to paint the drawing with a brush. 😳 I don’t know any WC people who do that but I was game to try.
I did draw a little with a grey watercolor pencil because toooo many grey WC lines. I erased all the grey lines I could with my moo erasure from cheap joes. We love our moo erasures.
Love the pants and the drip down the neck of the tshirt. The right arm is too wide but I think I can correct that with the background.
Pray for me !👍😃
Last page.
Thanks for reading. Back to painting.
Margaret xxx
Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art 