Category: USC Aiken

Day 712 – It’s Saturday 

Leave a comment


 Been a while since I posted one of these. Been out of town I think for the last two months or sick so haven’t been going to life modeling. 

And did I say rusty?! What happens when you don’t paint regularly. She looked good when I painted her. Not so sure now. Oh well there’s always gesso!! 


Or maybe she needs a good crop?! That’s one good thing about painting on hardboard you can crop it with a table saw. 

Thought I would share some of the other paintings done today. All but the watercolor are at least 24×30. 

This is Drew Murphy’s acrylic, my favorite one today I think. Really like his colors. Drew recently won a blue ribbon for best Abstract at the Aiken Art Guild juried show. 


Al Beyers’ oil hard to top Al but I think Drew did today. Al is a professor at USC Aiken and currently part of a faculty show at Aiken Center for the Arts. 

Tom Needhams watercolor. Tom teaches watercolor at the Gertrude Herbeet Institute of Art in Augusta. 


Fred’s acrylic. His Mondigliani. Love the orange background. He was just to my left 4 feet. And what a difference that made in the view. 

Interesting how different Ilania looks from different angles. 
Thanks for reading. 
Margaret xxx

Day 607 – 22 Sketches

Leave a comment

   
When you do that many you can post sketches for a week or more never repeating yourself. The girls costumes begged to be painted and the  many columns lining Sacred Heart. Great fun to paint wet on wet. 

 
The second or third sketch I did that night.  I had not quite warmed up.  Gouache is great for covering the background fast. When you have 22 sketches to paint you better have something that gets done quickly besides the sketching.  

  

One day when I grow up I want to paint urban sketches like this one by Al Beyer done in India a couple of years ago. Can you see the moped flying by? This is a big oil painting 3×4′ not a tiny sketch but definitely falls in the urban “sketching” genre. You can see more of his work here but sadly non of his urban sketching he does on his Maymester trips abroad – India – China – and this year Cambodia. Watch out Angkor Wat. 

Thanks for reading!

Margaret xxx

Day 598 – It’s Saturday 

2 Comments

  
Fun morning painting in Aiken. Our model was a no show but Ilania was there to draw so she kindly stood in for Alice the no show. 

  
Here she is blocked in after our first go round. I was really liking her at this point. Maybe I should have stopped then? 

I kept putting her belly button down past the third head hash mark which just threw everything off. 

Odd how that works. Finally at the ninth hour my nonmathy brain got it. It was above the third head hash mark. Duh!! 

Background has to be done but otherwise just a twitch here a twitch there. However too many and she just goes down the tube. 

Despite that considering these twitches!!😨 

Fix right breast. Too droopy!😔

Left eyebrow eyes too defined wrong angle 

Left hip. Curve starts at belly button 

Thin neck top to bottom on right

Shadow left of left breast

Dark blue line shadow under left hand.  
 Hopefully these will all be minor twitches. Nothing major.  

Funny story Ruth and I thought we were going to get the backside of her including the head but at the last second she turned around to face us. 

 Hurrah!! A pretty great  pose. 

Ilenia is such a gorgeous girl too bad I don’t do her justice.  

Colors used cobalt, nickel Azo gold white, burnt umber, ultramarine blue, cerulean.  And that’s it. 

Thanks for reading. Urban sketching coming up. Yeah!! 

Day 595 – Dad

3 Comments

    
Dad – 30x 40 Acrylic 
So one is done and time to start the next one. You have to draw with a paint brush. Not easy. Try it sometime. 
   

 I am drawing it from this photo I took of dad a couple of weeks ago. He’s 93!  

  
I couldn’t resist dumping it into Waterlogue. Kinda liking this. May have to paint it in watercolor too. 

  There’s also one of mom who’s a mere 90. This was taken four days after her birthday. Zoe was hiding from my parents mean schnauzers. 
Mom was supposed  to save her from them. Lol. 
Thanks for reading. Don’t forget to leave a comment if you want to be in the drawing in Five days.  
Margaret xxx

Day 594 – Is she done?!

3 Comments

   
The Party is  Over -30×40″ Acrylic 

I have been told to put my name on it. And some say it needs more tweaking. What do u think?! 

 

  I was told the roses were a little plain so I tweaked them some.  
Here’s how they look now.  Did I say I am NOT fond of painting roses?! They are such a problem but I like how these turned out. 

So am I done?! Don’t forget to leave a comment so you can be in the drawing on day 600. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 582 – A little reworking

Leave a comment

  Don’t forget to leave a comment for the 600 days drawing. Hmm is that a pun?!
I decided that all that green blue  I had painted on her was awful looking so I started painting.  

 That raccoon look was NOT good. Edges needed softening ALOT. 

I added a lot of burnt sienna for shadows and some nickel azo gold with pyrrole red and white for flesh tone. I also added a dark grey with sand in it to the background and then washed it with a thinned white. 

And softened edges. In case you don’t know. What that means it means that the edges are blurred aka softened like around her mouth and her eye. 

At the last minute I realized her tight shoulder was too high so I took about half an inch of the top and a bit off the side to round it some more. 

For the moment she’s done but you never know. Sometimes when you look at them you realize more work is required. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx who needs a nap. 

Day 586 – Ilenia

Leave a comment

  
Ilenia 24″ x 30″ Acrylic I have been paying attention to what Al said and trying to block everything in exactly before I start painting even though it’s more fun to just paint paint paint but the results are always disappointing when it comes to the human figure. They are almost always just off a bit here and there. 

  
Here she is blocked inat about 40 minutes of work. I didn’t notice till much later that her head was too big and as Dave said her haunch was too small. 😋

If u look u can see my hash marks from measuring her head. They are dark blue above her hip and to the left of her arm. 

I actually had started measuring her from the orange hash mark on the far right when I realized she would be painted on the right side of the board. So I drew another hash mark and started measuring her from the dark blue one. 

  
Here Ilenia is mostly sorted right before Daves she needs a bigger haunch remark. Funny thing is I had just told Charlie that he need to draw hers rear bigger on his drawing. That it was bigger than we think lol. An easy fix. Just add a curved swath of flesh color to fix her rear problems. Lol.  

 
Here she is now.  I think she could use a bit more work on her left eye and on her hand but hey I have a sweater to finish knitting. 

Colors used cerulean cobalt Winsor purple. The green is one of the blues and nickel Azo gold. Combines for an interesting color. Flesh is cad yellow, pyrrole red and white. Sometimes I used the nickel Azo gold for the yellow. Can’t live without that color. Love it!! 

Ultramarine blue and orange for her dark brown hair and brown shadows. 

Thanks for reading.  

Day 582 – The Party is over 

2 Comments

  
The Party is Over – Acrylic 30×40 painted with a huge brush. 3″. 

I thought it was a four inch brush but I picked up the wrong one. SCARY stuff. I have never painted a painting with that size brush aka HUGE!!!  

There’s about five hours in the painting at this point largely because I started over on a bigger canvas. 

   
Here the first go round is drawn with a 1/2 sable brush. It’s about 2′ x 3′ on hardboard. I did not want to pay for a frame SO I repainted it on canvas. 

Interestingly enough it was much easier to draw the second time. I guess I had already worked out the problems on the first try?! 

  Here she is blocked in. Well kinda sorta. I kept having to paint out lines to correct the drawing or it would have been too confusing by can still see some of them shining thru the white.  
Here’s a close up of the girl. 

  
Here’s version two as of yesterday. I added in some of the blue lines and tried to get her face where it belonged. Not easy with a huge brush and a terrible photo. I finally thru on the big brush for a smaller one. That half inch sable. 

Looking at it today I think perhaps the face is too defined. A well that’s why it’s a WIP. Should have brought it home to stare at for the weekend while knitting and tv watching however I didn’t. Oops!! 

Bytw if. U ever want to paint a large painting fast get out a house painting brush. Yes it can be done. Hmm I need a bigger palette though. What should I use?! 

Maybe a sheet of plexi?! We shall see because that huge brush is almost as big as my palette! 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 558 – Which do you like? 

2 Comments

  
Background 1

I spent most of yesterday repainting the Ilenia’s background. This is the current background and my favorite so far.  I also did a lot of work on the bottom background adding alizarin here and there to tie it to the background. Trying to loose some edges and get rid of the pasted on look of the figure bits of the purpley dark was added to her hair to blend it into the background.  I had to completely paint out the blue background 2 with titanium white to get rid of the blue and paint the background as it is in the first picture. 

The background colors are burnt umber, alizarin and ultramarine blue. I also added touches of burnt sienna and yellow ochre. It always seems that I scumble backgrounds a lot. And of course some of it was just painted with a sable paint brush which gives a smoother finish than the hog bristle that I used for scumbling. 

 
Background 2 

I thought I would like this color better than I did.  It’s cerulean, nickel azo and titanium painted over background 3 which is really the first background I tried out and another I usually like. I thought it was too over powering. 

  
Background 3 

Burnt umber and ultramarine blue with some nickel azo over brushed or scumbled over the darker colors. 

TIP: if you get tired of getting up and walking back from your painting to look at it you cab use your home.   

  
 Here are a few other versions of background 1.

So my question dear readers is WHICH do you like? As I said so far background 1 is my favorite. 

Thanks for reading!

Margaret who is off to class to make great art tomorrow. Xxx

Day 557 – Saturday Life Modeling

Leave a comment

 Ilenia after about an hour and a half of painting. Acrylic 30×36 hardboard panel

 Always a fun weekly event. 

I thought she was going well for working in the dark. For some brilliant reason I had my easel turned AWAY from the light. Maybe because we breeze in right before start time. Hopefully next time I will set it up right. 

Obvious problem was the bottom leg was too long. Her knee sticks out to far. I think that was due to slight shifts in the pose during breaks. Hard to resume the exact pose every time. 

  
Here she is now. Knee shortened. Top hip lengthened a bit on the left. All that foreshortening is such a pain. 

The background needs more work. The brown is too dark and those triangles at her feet need to go!  😳

Hard to paint such a big piece in a few hours. I think I have about five hours in it now. Dos I say I use big brushes.  

 Ilenia by Al Beyer – oil – at least 3×4′

This is Al Beyer’s aka painting. He was painting a few feet to my left. Always interesting to see how he goes about painting the model.

And how different the model looks just a few feet to my right or left. Al to my left barely saw her head. 

Lee drawing on my right had her full profile whereas I barely saw her nose. 

   

Als after two hour session which is really an hour and a half or so.  
 Colors used: all  golden or liquitex -titanium white, nickel Azo gold, pyrrole red, cad yellow, ultramarine blue, burnt umber, alizarin Crimson. I buy artist grade but whichever is cheaper or the color I like better. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx