Field of flowers

April 15, 2021April 15, 20212 Comments

You know one of the things That is a good side effect of the pandemic is all the zoom classes with famous artists that you could never afford to take from in person. And no travel. Do it at your favorite painting table. A win win if there is one in this hideous pandemic.

Today I took a class with Keiko Tanabe on shopkeeparty.com. she just zips along. This class went alot better than thenlast one I took with her so I may do another.

Quitting now. I worked on my sky a bit. And splattered a lot with white gouache, cad yw, opera, and some Joe’s Andrew’s Turquoise. Softened a few edges. Lightened a few spots that had gotten too wet to paint the bushes on and gone dark.

The photo

Will try again with a different building on Hahnamuhle rough instead of Kilimanjaro cold press. Let’s see how it does.

The sketch. Not much to it is there?! Kilimanjaro 300# cold press.

First wash. Dry brushing once I remembered to. Oops. Scratching in the field a bit. And splattering the green to simulate followers. The sky omg. Puffballs. Eek.

Progress. Using my cheap Joe’s Scroggys loose goosy, a kind of saber brush, to paint the flowers – all those lines. It also makes great hair, branches and sometimes telephone lines.

Adding details and darks. Trees and bushes. It was still to wet to do a lot of these but I plowed on chasing Keiko.

NEVER drink espresso Before Doing phone lines. Wobbly lines. Sigh.

Finally remembered how to dry brush trees. Added some neutral tint and some yellow ochre and alizarin to the sky. More cobalt too.

Thought it was done. But eeek. That hard edge under the house bushes. Had to wipe them out some.

And done.

If you are interested in taking online classes. Shopkeeparty.com offers all kinds of art classes twice a week. Every Tues am there’s a one hour one that is free to the public on YouTube. There’s also an extensive backlog of videos on YouTube all free for the watching on Shopkeeparty. John Harrison who runs it has been doing these for a year now. Another COVID benefit. He’s in England. His artists are all over the world.

Margaret xoxoxox who should sell some art to pay for the expensive sliding door that’s getting g replaced. Salesman coming today. Eeekk.

Barred rocks rock

August 21, 2019August 21, 20196 Comments

Did I say I LOVE drawing chickens??? Worth a ride to key west to just draw chickens.

I actually followed the chickens around at the homestead in the great Smokey’s National Park to draw these Barred Rocks. Too much fun.

I used to not like chickens. That’s before I started drawing them in all their infinite variety.

And somebody please tell me why I love to draw anything and everything when I am out of town. Staring at a bulldog lamp that’s saying draw me draw me. I don’t get that at home.

Lamy Ef strathmore 500 wc paper cerulean burnt umber ultramarine quin red quin gold.

Margaret who has to do a self portrait tomorrow. Eeekk. Xoxox

Day 296 – A few Barred Rocks

April 30, 20154 Comments

you know what those are. Chickens. They were so cute and fluffy. Eating constantly. I drove all the way across the Great Smoky National Park just to draw them. Over a huge mountain. I may be in love. There’s just something about these chickens that’s so appealing.

I hear you shaking your head. I used to do the same thing before I started drawing birds. If the cars were all Lapins fault the chickens are all Roz Stendahl’s fault. I want to go to the fair and draw more in the fall!!😳

These were actually drawn as the chickens ran around me at the Oconaluftee Farm. I should have drawn them with black or grey ink but for some reason I drew them with De Artrementis Brown in my Noodler standard flex.

It’s not a good idea to draw in the rain but I did that a lot the week I was in Gatlinburg because it rained almost daily. Thank goodness the ink dries quickly.

They were colored with my Caran d’Ache using the side of the flat end. I decided it was easier and quicker to use them than my watercolors though thinking back I don’t supposed it mattered that much.

I still have two more pages of chickens to color – silver wyandottes a much shyer chicken that ran any time anyone was near it and even worse to color than the barred rocks. I will probably use my watercolor pencils. But these will take a while to color!!

Silver Wyandottes

I also had fun journaling stray thoughts about the chickens as I drew them and later as I colored them.
Hope you enjoy them as much as I do. I need some chickens.

Thanks for looking.

Day 287 – Mingus Mill

April 22, 2015April 22, 2015Leave a comment

just before the Oconaluftee Visitors Center in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park .

This statement is wrong : I thought it still was a working mill but the wheel seems to be missing. Did some reading on the Mingus Mill on Wikipedia. There was never a waterwheel but it has some kind of small metal turbine wheel that drives the mill stones. It is still a working mill. It underwent a second restoration in 1968.

You can buy ground corn meal and a t shirt. The money all goes to support the park. It is the only park that doesn’t charge admission so it needs additional funding to help with such programs as fighting the woolie aedelgid which is decimating the Eastern Hemlock. Dead hemlocks parade thru the Appalachians killed by this bug and the park service is engaged in a deadly battle with them treating 5000 infested hemlocks this year alone.

Watercolor in my Stillman and Birn Zeta.

But back to Mingus Mill, a very interesting old building that sits back in the woods. It was restored in 1937. The steps are old mill wheels. The mill race is still gushing with water.

You have to cross a small stream to visit the mill. Very picturesque setting.

Bishops Cap

There are some lovely wildflowers there.

Canadian violets with a wild orchis or orchid near the mill.

The mill painting is painted with the same colors as yesterday’s painting.
Paint the background first. Sky and leaves. Streak in the background trees with soft greys and Blues after it dries. The foreground tree limbs are darker to make the background recede.

Thanks for looking.

Day 286 – The Tree on the Oconaluftee River

April 20, 2015April 21, 2015Leave a comment

My 101st post on my new blog. Loving WordPress. But I digress.

Back to that tree.

I actually let friends in FB and IG vote if I should color this sketch or not. All the votes but one were to color so I did.

This is an old tree on the banks of the Oconaluftee River that runs by the visitors center in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It was drawn with brown de Artrementis Document ink and one of my Noodlers. Love that flex nib. In my Stillman and Birn Zeta.

So here it is done. I started with the background first washing but with cerulean and dabs of spring green and viridian. The trees are all combos of indigo and burnt umber or raw Sienna. I used some leftover greens on the big tree trunk.
Trees in the background are streaks of greys.

The rhododendrons are spring green and ultramarine with indigo for the darks. I used a scraper to regain some of the lost reflections.

Dirt burnt umber and splots of indigo.

The river. Well like the rhododendrons that was a trial too. Splotchy blues and greens. Starting with light blue and darkening it down with darker blue. “Rocks” are indigos and greys. Usually you paint water lighter the farther away you get but I was trying to get down of it foamy hence the lighter areas of color.

Ps white gouache fixed an odd squared off angle on the right side of the legs tree trunk. What was I thinking!?