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Day 2090 Chelsea torture

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Since I was taking photos for a sick friend I never took one from My view point thinking I had taken enough. But I painted sitting down and took the photos standing up. Argh. Makes a difference.

Chelsea now

Chelsea yesterday evening

Today I have been trying to clean up Chelsea problem areas.

I have lightened her chin and around her mouth a considerable amount. Trying to remove all the greyish areas.

I also worked on her eyes lightening the whites and on her nose and lips. Wiped out a blob of color on her right cheek.

Added pink to her lips to her cheeks nose chin and ear. All places where the blood flows near the skin giving a pink tint.

I am fairly sure she developed a frown by the end because she was justifiably tired after two and half hours of posing. The mouth was the last thing I painted. Thus the frowny mouth.

I took a wet Kleenex and just wet it and dabbed at it to lift color from chin and lip areas. And those ugly dark commas on either side of her mouth. Trying NOT to age her.

About half way thru this I realized I could flip the photo I took to give me a guide to mouth placement and to her eyes.

So I uploaded this photo to photoshop express on my iPad. I poked around on it til I found the flip horizontal button. Presto at least she was almost facing the right way even though the shadows were off. The horizontal flip button is in the crop button menu.

Margaret thinking nap time. Getting to be a theme.

Day 2088 Tahred from road running

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One last sketch from Columbia. Wait who am I kidding two more I haven’t painted. Oopsey.

Snuff jars from the museum. Hmm I wonder if they sell them on eBay. One could hope. Like rows of tiny gems. Two inches tall at most.

Think I will go back and draw some more of them sometime. Just love these tiny guys. And each so intricately decorated.

Charles Reid palette colors. Twisbee pen now leaky twisbee Deartrementis document brown.

Margaret putting her feet up. Xoxoxo

Day 2087 Which do you vote for??!

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Time to decide which will it be for the Georgia Watercolor Show. I can enter three.

Fudging my bets with one of a guy. Jake. All are half sheet on 300 lb watercolor paper. Jake is on Cold Press Fabriano the others rough Fabriano.

So hard to decide.

Which do you vote for??!

Day 2086 St Maclou

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Saint Maclou Église is looking close to done. Hurrah. Because I don’t feel like painting today. Sharing the pics of the process so far I darkened the sky in this one w a mix of cobalt and a dab of Vlads neutral tint.

Built in 1436 or should I say started, St Maclou is a late gothic style known as Flamboyant. It’s over the top in its frills. Gleaming in the sun it looks like a large wedding cake.

Before I darkened the sky to make St Maclou pop. I also added a red orange mix – cad red light and cad yellow light – to the church door to demand your attention. Aka focus your eye. Still needs a lot of work on the left building but thinking right buildings may be done. Adding the people. I used Cheap Joes Andrews Turquiose and cad red which are opaque colors to make the jackets stand out all of which I dry brushed on taking advantage of the opaque color. adding details and detail washes on buildings. detailing buildings Dumped my photo into waterlogue to see if it would have a clue or two on how to paint. Love the red building but it would detract from my focus the church. Have always thought this could make a great painting. Rouen Cathedral in waterlogue. A free ap that turns your photos into watercolors. Sometimes doing s great job sometimes NOT. The sketch which took forever. Drawing on rough paper is NOT easy. especially when you want alot of straight lines.

The sketch I did of St Maclou when I was in Rouen in the square sitting in front of the Église aka church in a drizzly rain like today eating a meringue from a nearby patisserie. Of course not all the people were there at the same time. I just added them as they walked by. Then finished drawing the background houses. the medieval house on the right is the one to the right of the church in my larger painting.

Another artist painted St Maclou back in the 1890s. He turned the square in front into a fairytale story book like setting.

Margaret hoping she gets busy soon. So many paintings to paint and then there’s the house that needs a good cleaning. xoxoxoxo

Day 2086 D Day Invasion

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When we went to France we went to The Normandy Invasion Sites. Aka Operation Overlord aka D Day.

The French in Normandy seriously love Americans because they know we saved them. This is a sketch of one of the Canadian cemeteries at Birn Sur Mer. We were there on Veterans Day and many of the people on the tour had uncles buried there leaving roses on their graves. The Canadian DDay Museum a fascinating place that looks like a maple leaf from above. It’s made with aluminum sheathing that glows in the light.

Arrowmanche which still has implacements from the invasion in their harbor. I almost got left behind by the bus while I was drawing this sketch. 🤣 We suffer for our art.

Ranville. The first city the Allies freed in Normandy also a site of another allied cemetery. The church is still pockmarked with canon shell holes.

Mushrooms outside another museum we visited. Pegasus Bridge Museum where the British paratroopers landed BEFORE the D Day invasion. Out of the 600 that parachuted in only 165 survived the nights shooting.

Another page I just dug up. The leader of the British paratroopers.

The invasion maps. – The la song sites -Utah Omaha Gold Juno and Sword Beaches – among rh coast of Normandy near Bayeux home of the famous tapestry and Areowmanches where the Bristish established Mulberry harbor a temporary port for the allies. Remnants of it can still be seen today.

Memorial at the American cemetery at Omaha Beach.

More Omaha beach pictures. One thing you can say about France sunny one minute cloudy and raining the next.

The bravery of these men was amazing and we and the French will all be forever grateful. The stories of them abound still in Normandie.

Oh bytw several shows on tonite on the National Geographic channel with actual footage from the invasions tonite. Have my dvr set.

Margaret getting ready to eat her chicken noodle soup. Xoxoxo

Day 281 Saved by a lab

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Van Goghs Blue church – Église Notre Dame de L’Assomption at Auvers-sur-Oise Getting near done. If you turn the corner to the left you will be at the Auberge Ravoux where he died. Maybe a block away.

The lab was added because I knocked my metal Holbein palette from the table onto this painting after the first wash putting a hole and a crease into it. You could actually see thru it. I ironed it flat with a hot iron set in cotton. But the mark still showed. My friend Mike suggested adding a dog. Worked a treat as the Brits say. After I ironed it. Not as bad but you can still see it.

The ding in my new board it was mounted on.

First wash of yellow ochre to tone the page.

the sketch

Second

After a spritz of water I ironed it on the back to flatten it with a hot iron set on cotton since the paper is cotton. Seemed to work a treat as the Brits say.

hmm WordPress seems to have lost the rest of this post. Sigh.

Margaret annoyed and quitting for the night. Xoxoxo

Day 2071 Rue de Gros Horlage

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Which means Street of the Large Clock in Rouen. If you turn around the opposite direction you would see the Rouen cathedral – well at least part of it.

This is a half sheet of rough Fabriano. Got to get something done to enter the Georgia Watercolor Show.

Can you find the vanishing point. Notice all peoples heads line up on the horizon line. And I tried to get all the diagonals to converge at the vanishing point. Oddly some of them don’t in this medieval town but normally they should.

Blue Heaven in Key West

But I may paint this. It’s a full sheet of cp Fabriano

I give up I can’t find the photo or copy to word press that I drew the second one from. But thinking I should have drawn the one above. Or that great iguana.

Margaret over and out Xoxoxoxo