Category: Noodler Creaper Ahab

Day 282 – Cataract Falls

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Took a nice walk behind the Sugarlands Visitor Center to Cataract Falls. 

The waterfalls are difficult to draw with water threading over dark black rock. I am going to add some white gouache to the water to see if it perks it up a little. It was drawn with my Noodler Ahab in my S&B Zeta with caran d’ache. 

I could not resist drawing the lady who was there taking pics of it. She had such an intersting stance I could not resist. Then she started talking to me. Scary!! What if she wanted to look?! 

 

 We even photographed a white trillium together. 

 

 There were yellow trillium everywhere along the trail. 

 

 The trail was loaded with flowers and  

  

a small black snake. 

 

 It  wound along by Fighting Creek. 

A lovely easy trail.  

Thanks for looking. 

Day 282 – Running out of ink!

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 and some more food sketching. 

 Brownie and chocolate chip ice cream desert  at the Wild Plum Tea Room.  I think I might be obsessed with food but it was delicious served on a sweet pink and white rose china plate including a doily.  

I used my kuretake brush pen  and a pitt pen plus caran d’ache. 

Need to add something to the title. Maybe a plum because I didn’t space the lettering out enough. 

 

 A warning about the kuretake brush pen.  I love it. I got a converter for it too but it runs out very quickly when doing a large sketch like this one with all the black line work. I think I refilled it three times in the process. My Pentel brush pen which I left back at home would still be full of ink. I guess it’s a small price to pay for being able to use  platinum carbon black ink in a brush pen but it’s annoying to refill so frequently.  

 The other day I went out sketching and ran out of ink. It was especially great for sketching trees but I ran out before I could finish. 

Now I have to drive back up the mountain and finish this. To make the scenario perfect I left my Pentel brush pen at home 234 miles away. Not fun to refill the pen with a bottle of ink in the car. Sigh! 

Thanks for looking!!


Day 277- Earls

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finishing up Atlanta sketches. As usual we hit the restaurants. 

 

Earls on Flat Shoals Road in East Atlanta Village was the perfect spot for an outside lunch on a gorgeous spring day.

 Hamburgers were cooked to order and delicious. Sweet potatoes fried were perfect and the Dijon cranberry dipping sauce was some kind of heaven.  Tasted like it had a bit of horseradish sauce it it too. Yumm. The tea was just the way I like it. Lots of ice too. 

I drew the sketch with a Kuretake brush pen loaded with Carbon Platinum black. Love that pen. Think refillable Pentel brush pen.  Heaven right. I colored it with the Caran d’ache  watercolor crayons. The bases are washes of watercolor using the caran d’ache crayons. Layers of color were  scribbled on the base watercolors with any color that I thought would look good. After I was done painting i reapplied lots of ink including cross hatching. 

The pale blue background was made by using a water  brush on the flat end of the crayon. Fun stuff!! 

  

I already filled up ️my Sennelier accordion book. No bleed thru so far.   The paper is lovely heavy stuff. Will be posting as soon as I do an accordion book tutorial and color the Sennelier.  

Thanks for looking!! 

Day 276 Church Lady 

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sometimes I wonder why everything I seem to paint is full of problems that I have to solve.  How is it that I screw up over and over.  Maybe it’s the universe hinting I should go back to painting with acrylics!? I dunno. 

 

 I painted three ladies or manikin heads with fancy hats. Church Lady is the third one.  I meant to post this one on Easter Sunday but got busy and didn’t quite get around to it.  You notice that quote?! Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.  That’s me and watercolor. Something is going to  invariably mess up.   

I painted her face THREE times. Can you believe that?! I truly did.  I had a lovely face and was doing the letterig on the side and my pen caught on the string and slung blips of brown ink all over her face and a bit on her hat. Groan. That’s all I could do. 

   

  

Here she is right before instarted the lettering. Worst thing is I hated the lettering when I had finished it. So I messed her up for nothing.  

I painted over the ink splats with white gouache and never could get her face right. So I decided to cut out a new face. I did. I cut out three or four. One even ended up painted. It never laid down right so I peeled it off.  Oh what a mess. 

Finally I painted the remains of  her original face out with Daniel Smith watercolor ground. The surface was ripped and lumpy. I thought hopeless.

  

I redrew her face with my Noodler flex non and De Artrementis brown document ink.  I painted her face for the third time. Finally I pronounced her done.  I lettered her with a brush and the brown ink. I also painted out the quote with yellow gouache. I thought church ladies was a lot more fun than that quote which ended up I the border. Oh I highlighted the hat and the eyes with white gel pen. 

 

 Oh.  I made a few more accordion books. That make seven. Stay tuned for a how to on the accordion books. 

Love that new Kuratake refillable pen in the picture . Now loaded with platinum carbon black ink. Super pen. Busy drawing my way thru my new S&B Zeta. Still need to paint them. 

Thanks for looking. 

Day 274 – The Tale of the $43 Chicken Salad

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 A little Journaling about my very expensive chicken salad at Whole Foods. They ended up giving it to me because it rang up for $43.50!!! I have decided to try journaling a little on the sketches I have been doing in my new Stillman and Birn Zeta. What do you think?! 

 

This sketch was really bad for a while because of lack of good colors of Tombows. All I have with me are oddball colors to fill in the ones I already have. Then I remembered I had my box of Neocolor ii caran d’ache. I also hauled out the tube of flesh colored gouache that I bought. Caran d’ache can maximize coloring fun. 

 The mess – I had tried coloring their faces and the ink smeared. Why it does it sometimes and not others I will never know. I think a mess can be good because you no longer care if you mess up. Fun effects can happen then. 

How I cured it. Painted a couple of layers of gouache letting each layer dry. Then I played with the caran d’ache.  Last I Reinked their faces. 

Thanks for looking. 

Day 272 My Bayeux Tapestry Part 2

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the last panels of the book. Actually the first ones that I did. 

  

270 inches long  Moleskine accordion 3.5×5″

  

This section was drawn at the Evans Towne Center Park and the dog park there. I love the walkers swinging their Arms and leaning forward. The people with their dogs are also a favorite. Bicycle guy rice by twice before I decided to draw him. And of course he never came back after I started him. Oops!

  

An overlap. Some of this was drawn in the Earthfare parking lot while I waited for my friend to carpool to life sketching at USC Aiken. He rest was drawn at the Inner Bean. 

Thanks for looking!! 

Day 270 – A New Journal

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Inspired by a Pam Garrison post on Instagram I made my own book plate in my new Stillman and Birn Zera.  My goal was to start in it April 1 and I did.  Already have four pages done  in it. 

I drew a curvy ribbon first.  Then I filled in with the black eyes Susans and added the Rose stems then the roses. After that I added all the leaves.  Next came the curly que leaves and last all the dots. 

I actually painted the ribbon with de artrementis brown document ink with my #2 Isabey sable brush. Lettering and the rest of the ink was done with my Noodler flex  pen with the same ink. 

After the ink dried I painted the daisies with DS Hansa yellow, the roses with DS Quin Magenta  and the leaves with a mix of the Hansa yellow and maganese blue and dabbed in a little mauve. Try it. Nice official way to start a new journal. 

  

The reverse of the first page. A good quote to remember when journaling. 

Day 269 – Sometimes It’s Easy 

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and then sometimes you look and wonder HOW did you make that mistake. This painting has a BIG mistake. Can you find it?!  

 

Another hat and mannequin from Cosbys Apparel during my mad sketching downtown last week. 

In my Stillman and Birn Zeta with Noodler Flex loaded with De Artrementis brown document ink. 

 

 The background was easy to do. I actually wrote the lyrics to In Your Easter Bonnet by Irving Berlin with a soft 4B pencil in the background.  Then I smudged it.  After that I painted it out with a mix of white gouache, a bit of all the other colors on the pallette to make a buff-yellow blue and English red. Paint it only enough to blur the writings but not completely obscure it. 

The face and neck was washed with DS Quin Coral and Hansa Yellow and allowed to dry. Shadows were done with burnt sienna and cerulean which was allowed to mix on the page. I only painted one color at a time. The wet on wet let them mix. I also softened the edges. More DS Quin Coral was used on the cheeks and the lips. 

The hat. Oh my. It was painted with yellow ochre. Then the lace was painted with the  DS Quin Coral. I tried not to define it too much.  

 

 The hat decorations were painted with  DS Quin Coral and yellow ochre.  Shadows are Piemonite and cerulean. I really need to practice painting flowers. I need to remember to do more wet on wet. 

 The sequins and diamond paste was done by dipping the end of my brush in white gouache.  You can easily make circles that way. 

Glove shadows cerulean and yellow ochre or burnt sienna. Same thing on the pearl shadows. 

  

Lettering done with sepia doc Martin ink and a paint brush, my number 2 Isabey. Love that brush. 

So have you figured out what’s wrong with this painting yet?!  Her hand is backwards.  I took a photo of my hand to draw it and of course I took it from the wrong side.  DUH.  

Day 268 Almost a DisaSter!

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 Lady in Black. Mixed Media 

I am thrilled with the way she turned out but the original sketch in Pentel brush was awful so I decided to whip out the Daniel Smith watercolor ground and paint over her and redraw. I redrew her with the Pentel brush pen.  Oh what a mistake that was. It wasn’t waterproof and kept leaking on my sketch. Oops. 

I patiently blotted the leaking ink over and over as it ran with a clean folded paper towel. I love brawny the paper towel that keeps on giving.  I thought the painting might be cursed but no all of a sudden she was looking great. The smudgy ink lent an air of mystery or at least interst to the watercolor I think. 

I actually traced the head on notebook paper and used it as a pattern to cut out the background accounting book paper to glue over the de artrementis document brown ink I decided I didn’t like with the black.  I painted over it with a buff gouache. I threw the pattern in the trash but will get it out and take a photo so you can see what I did. 

The black is a mix of DS alizarin red and indigo. Makes a great blue black. Skin is DS Quin coral and yellow ochre.  Shadows are burnt sienna Quin sienna and cerulean. 

Thanks for looking. 

Day 260 – My Mothers Garden 

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My Mothers Garden 

11×15

$250 framed and matted 

$200 unframed 

original watercolor on kilimanjaro

My mother is an avid gardener whose every finger is green. This is based on her spring garden in Asheville NC. 

 

Yuchikiokee Festival

 Quick sketch adding onto the crowd as they walked by yesterday and stood for a few minutes before the big show at Yuchikiokee Festival in Evans Ga. Sadly day two got rained out. I filled in the people in the foreground first. The lady in the middle was a walk off before I drew her legs. Oops. That happens. Then I filled in the background. 

Will be posting more later today. 

Thanks for looking.