Category: Stillman and birn

Day 314 – More Grandkids Paintings

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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 

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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

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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 311 – Finished Accordion Book 

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Hard to take good pics of these. It’s about 80″ long.  Sorry they are crooked. The paper is Stonehenge print paper I think. Cream colored. Lovely paper. You can actually paint on both sides which I did because I had filled up the front at Pops Under the Stars.  It was so much fun drawing that I kept on drawing and filled up the back. 

So here are  close ups of the front.    

  I started this in Gatlingburg. Only got two people done. Oops!  I drew the first lady while waiting for my mom who is the second lady.     

       

Love the lady to the right so much I drew her three times.   
Thanks for reading. 

Margaret XXX

Day 310 – Rhododendrons

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Rhododendrons 

Half sheet 15×22 

cold press 300#Fabriano  

Based on some photos I took on Valle Crucis a week ago.  I am not wild about painting flowers. All the negative painting is just HARD!!  I usually do something terrible to screw then up and have to get out the gouache.  No gouache so far. Maybe I should quit?! 

 This was painted almost entirely with my Isabey squirrel mops. The stamens were done with my #6 Isabey Kolinsky sable. Love all those brushes. Their kolinskys point like no other brushes I own. Better than a rigger.
   

I started with a good drawing of the flowers. I still got lost painting them. All pink rhododendrons look the same. 

 

  The background is done with diluted washes of four or five colors that is eventually painted over. I tried to leave a lot of white and used light pink in the initial flower washes. Mineral Violet was used to do the negative painting on the flowers. 

 Beginning detail. 

Masked the stamens with a throw away kids model paint brush. I used Quin red for the pink hookers green on the leaves with Quin gold and ultramarine blue and mineral violet.  

  
Progressing

 The background blue is Inathridone blue or as we call it Pb60. It’s the blue in indigo blue. Drips are made by standing the board up when wet and slamming it in the table. 

  The splots are deliberate and done by placing the whole mop down on the painting with a light wash of color in it, ie more water than color. Fun stuff. Try it!! I also splattered some. If I knew where my toothbrush was I would use it to splatter too. 

 So Far

Here it is for now. I added a lot of small dots of color with my #6 Isabey Kolinsky sable. It might need more jewelry I mean dots but it’s too late and I am tired so that’s when it’s a good idea to quit for the nite I think. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret XXX

Day 308 – a Few more of Maestro Z

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  There are actually ten pages of these but this set messed up the other eight already finished pages. I was bored after painting the first eight and decided to try something different. 

Fealing gave us an example with this wash on it so I decided to try it. The background is a wash of 16 washes of color.  I applied the first eight backwards so I did 8 more in the right order and the washes leaked.  It’s a great color BUT not so great I wanted to mess up ten or twelve other pages. 

See below for color combos for the background. 

Here are the pages that were messed up.  Even worse I had finished painting them ALL. There are grey blobs on all of them. One set of  pages even got stuck together.   
I did use some white gouache on a few to try to fix them with varying degrees of success. White gouache my BFF.   

  
Just a small leak on this one. 

  
Big lean on this but it didn’t show so much. 

  
Thank goodness nothing to mess up on these pages. 
The 16 layers of washes are 

Cerulean 

Orange

Cerulean 

Orange 

Cerulean 

Burnt Sienna

Hookers green 

Cerulean 

Then I did them in the right order 

Cerulean

Burnt sienna

Hookers green

Cerulean 

Cad orange 

Cerulean 

Cad Orange

Cerulean. 

Now I think I will try another one with just the last eight washes. The correct way lol. It does make a beautiful blue grey. 

Day 307 – Reportage Accordion Style 

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Maestro Z 

Drawing the conductor Maestro Z at Pops under the Stars was so much fun I wished I had brought an empty accordion book. This is just half of one. It would be fun to do a ballerina like this. 

  
Detail 1

The blacks were made with Inathridone blue and burnt umber.  Grey on the jacket is cerulean and burnt sienna or cobalt and burnt sienna.

 

Detail 2 

The background is Quin gold and Quin red painted on with my big Isabey squirrel mop and allowed to blend when they were wet. I think I might cover up Maestro Z and splatter this strip. 
 
Detail 3 
Drawing this was so much fun I drew ten pages of these in my sketchbook. Will post them tomorrow. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret XXX

 

Day 306 -Reportage?!

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Happy Mothers Day. 

Last nite we went to the annual Pops under the Stars with the Augusta Symphony. I drew about thirty pages and half an accordion book. It was a lot of fun and felt like I really was in the groove. Pages of sketches of the conductor. They are so energetic. Just wish we were closer to see Maestro Z better. 

So here is part of what I drew. Can’t wait to slap some paint on these. 

   Sketching the orchestra warming up!! 

Maestro Z 

The conductor was very energetic!!  

Sketching the orchestra warming up and some of the crowd. 

  More Sketching the orchestra warming up

  Henry loved it. His first fireworks and he thought they were amazing. 

  One of my favorite sketches. Lee Anne.  
The crowd nearby. 

More later. Gotta run. Mothers Day company coming!! 
Thanks for reading!! 

Margaret XXX

Day 299 – Silver Wyandottes 

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  aka chickens. More of the reason I drove across the mountains. Sketching chickens is THE most fun and I highly recommend giving it a go. 

  Silver Wyandottes are interesting looking chickens. With white diamond and a swirl of light feathers streaked with black around their heads. 

 
Stillman and Birn Zeta with a Noodler Conrad Flex loaded with Lexington Grey ink. I am actually not sure if all these chickens were Silver Wyandottes but they are colored like they are. 

  The bottom left chicken was colored with a tombow pen. It’s fun to wet them and see them run. You can lift the colors. I thought it might be a good way to color these oddly colored birds. Actually I think the Tombow was a little strong for these chickens. Next I tried a black and an indigo inktense  pencil. Things were going better. The blue softened the black. I drew a diamond pattern all over the hens bodies. Then I added white gouache after the inktense dried.  The benefit of inktense is that once it dries its permanent and you can paint over it. White gouache was also used around the beaks and heads to eliminate dark grey lines I didn’t want especially on the big chicken on the right.  That defined the face and beak better. The waddles and red bits on the head where colored with watercolor pencils- red yellow and orange! The background is 2 light blue watercolor pencils and a purple one for shadows. White gouache was brushed over the neck feathers to make them look fluffier. 

My gift to you this Sunday is these chicken picture so you can join in the chicken sketching fun. At least these aren’t running anywhere. Have fun and I would love to see what you do with them.  

Don’t forget to draw the silver Wyandotte earlier on this post. 

 

Drawing chickens is like drawing bumpy triangles.  The legs are two sticks with upside down trees on them. 

More park sketches tomorrow. 

Thanks for looking!! 

Maggie XX  
  
    

Day 298 – 70th Anniversary 

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Don’t know if when you sketch you have trials and tribulations like I seem too. Do some of your drawings just not turn out like you planned? That would be me. 

  Drawn while waiting for my parents to arrive with my kuretake brush pen in my Stillman and Birn Zeta this sketch at the Park Grill is one.  Just plain boring and not very attractive. All those huge pine logs are yellow. The chairs were oddly fun the sign thru the windows very interesting but for what ever reason it wasn’t working. It did become the perfect journal page.  

  

Journaling added some interst to it.  At least to me it did. My parent s have been going to this restaurant for 30 plus years and where looking forward to having their 70th anniversary there. Sadly the restaurant had changed from an upscale restaurant with a piano player to screaming blue grass piped music, one inch thick fried bologna sandwiches and “naner pudding” served in pint mason jars. However my expensive grilled trout was delicious.

So how was this picture saved? Not sure it was but at least it’s worth a look. Journaling in the background helped and adding white gel pen anywhere I thought light might hit the furniture and the windows. Crosshatching on the sign made it appear to have shape. 
I think I will stick to drawing chickens and landscapes for a while. 

Thanks for reading! 

Maggie XX