Day 326 Flying High

May 31, 2015Leave a comment

Went out to lunch yesterday with my sister in law Jan at the Peachtree DeKalb Airport where they were preparing for their Spring Open House. We watched the planes come

And go during lunch. Then I decided to draw a few. All their antique WW2 planes lined up asking to be drawn.

These were drawn on site with a Noodler Creaper Ahab in my Stillman and Birt Alpha painted with watercolor and touches of white get pen.

The Grumann Avenger Torpedo Bomber was the first one I drew. A nice Navy blue. How could u resist it shining in the sun, saying draw me?!

Sometimes crosshatching the background fixes mistakes but NOT this one. I think A bad line would have been better. Planes are hard to draw because there are so many angles going every which way. Typical perspective rules apply but don’t seem too. Easy to get off track.

I tried to stay on track by looking at the angles of the real wings compared with the angles I drew on the page starting with the fusillade then adding wings and tails. As it is I forgot to add the tail gun. So many small details it’s easy to miss a few.

When I got home I looked up the plants to try to figure out which ones they were. The Grumann Avenger was the plane Pres George Bush flew in WW2.

The navy blue is a mix of ultramarine and black a color I rarely use. It was hard to get a deep deep blue without the black.

Next was the infamous WW 2 Mitsubishi Zero famed for dogfights in and kamikaze missions in the Pacofoc campaign. We thought surely it was not a zero but it had that big red circle on it. We knew what that meant. I looked it up and yes it was. This was fairly easy to draw. Profile views are easter even in a plane. Even the military green was easy. A bright green mixed with yellow ochre. Piece of cake. Success at last. I added a touch of Quin burnt sienna to the cad red of the circle.

Not sure what kind of plane this is. A WW2 Army Spotter plane I was told. Of course now the tail says USAF. Hmm I noticed that as I was drawing.

I used the same greens on this plane as the zero. The gold is Quin gold. Yellow ochre was just being when I tried it. Grey is ultramarine and Quin burnt sienna.

More planes tomorrow and a comparison of paint.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret XXX

Day 325 – Dog Days

May 30, 2015Leave a comment

dog sitting my sons pit bulls.

Bear is always a challenge to paint with his brindle fur. First he was painted with a mix of Quin gold and Quin burnt sienna. Then I daubed in burnt umber and ultramarine for the blackish brindle in his fur. I also added the shadow under him when the fur was still wet. And that’s all I did. It was all wet on wet except the dab of muddy Quin red in his ears.

Livia is always interesting to draw with her curves. And fairly easy to paint. A wash of Quin gold, burnt umber shadows and burnt umber and ultramarine to make a black for her muzzle.

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

Day 315 – Kirkwood Spring Fling

May 20, 2015Leave a comment

Random people at last weekend’s Spring Fling in Kirkwood in Atlanta at Bessie Branham Park, a beautiful spot with lots of shade trees around for sitting under as well as an open green space where a band played.

I actually like this odd assortment of people. Originally there were more tents planned in the background but I didn’t paint them because dark large leaks from from other pages in the book. The guy in the hat had green on his face from the leaks. 😳 Got out the flesh gouache to fix him but it was not to successful. It was a dark green. Sigh. No feet. Not sure why other than people were just whizzing by. I couldn’t ask them to stop. Lol.

Noodler creaper Ahab loaded with Carbon Platinum black ink in my Strathmore 500 mixed media. Really not happy with the way it’s leaking watercolor washes along the binding and ruining pages.

This one was never finished. See the leaky clothes on the pages at the center? Nasty mess.

More random people at the Spring Fling. No idea why not one of these people have feet either other than they were moving so fast. They walked off before I could add their feet. Some of the people are compilations of several people walking by like the red head with the backpack in the middle. Drawing moving people is much easier to do with a brush pen. No drag on the surface like my Noodlers have when you draw with them.

Really pleased with the greens I mixed in both of these.

So here’s the tip for today. The dark greens in the trees are made by mixing burnt sienna and Inathridone blue pb60. I added Quin gold to the mix on the paper. Really like the color variations the mixture gave me.

The green in the grass was made with manganese blue and aureolin yellow with touches of Quin gold. New Gamboge would be great too instead of the Quin gold. The flowers of alizarin and purple were added while the grass was wet as were the shadows under the bench.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 314 – More Grandkids Paintings

May 20, 20155 Comments

Love the background on this spread. Scroll down to see how it was started. This is a practice painting for the next one. I think she needs a neck or her heads too big. Or maybe her head just looks pasted on becaus it has no shadows around the baby’s chin. I think that’s the problem. What do you think?!

Pleased with the way Henry turned out on the right.

Definitely more work required. Liking the drips and splatters which I actually purposefully made. Stay tuned I will show u how but not tonite. Too late posting. Sorry.

TIP: This is how I started the background in the first double spread. A wash of several soft colors Quin red Quin gold yellow yellow ochre burnt sienna cerulean and mineral Violet.

Then u tone it down by painting more washes of a variety of colors over it which is how the background in the first one was done. Just don’t go dark with your washes. You can do that later!

Here she is so far. More work required. No drips and no splatters yet. The soft pink skin is made from Quin coral and yellow ochre. Hope the dress is not too dark.

Decided to make this a journal page of our weekend together.

Henry’s head reshaped from yesterday’s post. Now I think he needs more back on his head but at least it’s not shaped like a football helmet.

I added some drips and some dark darks behind his head and under his arms to this one.

Don’t know why I didn’t do any drips and splatters. Have a few paintings from spring fling that I did drip and splatter. Wondering if that is because the kids paintings are more important to me than the others? I think so.

Do you find it freeing not to care if you mess up a painting? Sometimes the most fun happens with watercolor then.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret XXX

Day 313 – Painting my Coloring Book

May 19, 2015May 19, 20155 Comments

best thing about sketching is you end up with a grown up coloring book.

Spent a few hours painting sketches I did this weekend.

These are my favorite so far.

Henry was so into Jake and the Neverland Pirates he hardly moved. These are stil quick sketches because you always think a child will move especially Henry. This is the only time he holds still when hes awake.

Bytw he’s wearing his favorite monster Jammies a certain Gramy gave him for Christmas.

Both of these have problems but one day it will be a nice memory of him. It’s easy to fix the one on the right. He has a little too much hair. That’s saying something for Henry. He has a haystack of thick hair. I think the one on the right needs more hair. Interesting how these things show up in a camera but you don’t notice when you are painting or drawing the person.

Here he is with a better shaped head. The shape makes a difference. And I had to add a few drops. Love drips!

TIP: Always check your picture in a camera to see where it needs improvement. This second one is going back to the drawing board.

Thanks for reading!!

Margaret XXX

Day 312 – sketching the grandkids

May 17, 2015May 17, 20152 Comments

Difficult to say the least. Henry holds still better than Livia who is always reaching for something or other.

Henry loves Jake and the Neverland Pirates and sits fairly still while watching them.

Here’s another one. The tiny feet are so sweet but hard to draw. I was using a sort of contour drawing to do all these not a searching sketchy line with my Noodle Creaper Ahab. Love that pen.

One last sketch. I will paint these with watercolor soon.

My favorite Livia sketches. Most of these were disasters because she rarely holds still more than a second.

Check back. More later!!

Thanks for reading.

Margaret XXX

Day 305 – a Review of the Weeks Paintings

May 9, 2015May 9, 2015Leave a comment

As no doubt you have noticed we all loved out week with Fealing Lin at Cheap Joes in Boone NC last week. If it weren’t for Mother’s Day I think we would still be there painting. A great teacher and the set up at Cheap Joes is just awesome. Everybody has their own table. A huge flat screen tv to watch teacher demos. Awesome lunches. What more can I say. Take a class at Cheap Joes(www.CheapJoes.com) and or a class from Fealing (www.fealinglin.com).

Most still need a few more touches but will set them out and stare at them first. Then they are FOR SALE!!

Man from Shanghai or Opium smoker. 15×22 cold press 300# Stephen Quiller

The debate still rages over what exactly is in his pipe.

Ben

15×22 cold press 140# Fabriano

He recieved several proposals from mothers of single daughters!!

Kenyatta 15×11 cold press 300# Stephen Quiller

Hair needs more curls and that brown spot on the left has got to go.

Fisherman from Falmouth

15×11 cold press 300# Stephen Quiller
From an old photo from around 1900 aka out of copyright

TIP: Did you know that all government photos are copyright free. The Library of Congress has a wealth of old black and white photos COPYRIGHT free at http://www.loc.gov 

Boone

15×22 cold press 300# Stephen Quiller

I am I love with painting old wrinkly weathered guys with beards and mustaches.

Thanks for reading!!

Margaret XXX

Day 303 – Feeling Fealing Part 3

May 8, 20152 Comments

Another great day with Fealing Lin. I highly recommend her. Just the best most giving teacher.

We worked and worked and a lot of work is getting done. Tomorrow critiques!!

The egg. Did you know if you draw on a BOILED egg or a plastic one like this it mimics the perspective of your head as it moves around up and down. Great way to teach it.

Black and white value study she did of two men in Chinatown. She doesn’t use pencil because it takes too long but instead uses Cheap Joes American Journey Warm Black and a big brush to whip it out.

Kenyatta

I added some bubbles and some pebbles aka some curls. I think I will do more. I also need to bring her shirt into a little better focus. Less busy color. Aka knock the color back! But I am pleased with her.

Boone

After

I worked on my Man from Shanghai some more as well as my fisherman, Kenyatta and Boone. I knocked the background back with Inathridone blue.

Before. The background is pretty but easter eggy. I also added the “jewelry” and some bubbles. I think his mouth is still off a twitch and I need to fix that. I am

Pretty happy with him. More work probably but we were off to show Fealing Mast General store in Valle Crucis a lovely secluded valley near Boone and buy some shoes for our achy feet.

The store has an old potbelly stove complete with rocking chairs.

Lots of old barns and lovely mountains. Not the greatest photos but the sun was not cooperating today.

Rhododendrons were starting to bloom. Lovely things. Of course we didn’t need to drive twenty miles to see them. When we got back we noticed a bushful next to our hotel!! We did have a great time laughing and googling and taking pictures!!