Day 536 – Saturday in Aiken

December 19, 2015Leave a comment

Life modeling today at USC Aiken

The lovely Ilenia was our model. Great pose- The thinker!! Acrylic on illo board.

Felt good to be painting and hanging out with other artists today.

After first forty minutes – legs are too long!!

Lots of good natured banter and holiday cheer today. The pound cake that I took was devoured. Just a few pieces left for Al our esteemed leader who was off celebrating his daughters marriage.

After I got home I gave her a good look as I sat eating a sandwich. Her chin was jutting out to far. The arm under her chin was too straight. Nose too long.
More shadows in the foreground. Cerulean blue shadows in the drape.

Making progress. How she looks at present!! I think I need a nap now. Going to let Ilenia lean on the mantel and tell me if she’s done or not. She will know. Then I will know.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret who has presents to wrap and a sweater to finish knitting. Xxx

Day 488 Wifi problems

November 10, 2015November 10, 2015Leave a comment

Sketching from the boat. More in a minute.

No idea of my posts are making it. But I am trying. So we are now arriving at Vernon after spending the morning in Auvers sur Oise. Lovely little town. You might have heard of it. Van Goghs last town where he died?!

Begins the inn Van Gogh died at. The houses and lane are still there.

The wheat field he painted with the crows is still there. It’s also where he was shot or he shot himself depending on who you believe.

Back on the boat heading to Vernon I discovered that I could draw buildings I like and did them to the sketch making my own towns. The houses are real but maybe not next to each other. Trees are real but not where they were necessarily because we might move down the river before I got done drawing the house and it’s foliage.

The first house at the locks at Mericourt. Those trees were not next to it. Oops. We moved. I wanted to finish the sketch.

Then I tried a one page sketch of the river hillside. Fun drawing but no these houses are not exactly like this in Rolleboise. What a great name, non?!

And the first double page

Day 472 – She was too pretty!!😳

October 26, 20152 Comments

She was too pretty 30×40″ ??? acrylic

At critique today the class loved the way she looked but the boss aka professor said she was too pretty so I spent today trying to make her less pretty. It’s hard to make a pretty girl not pretty. This is what she looks like now. I should have known better than to use any pink. .

I decided to use contrasting colors adding a lot of orange with cad yellow light for highlights. I also added some pure phtalo blue for darks. And bits of cad yellow light for sparkles.

I also like the area of carpet under the sofa. All the busy stuff. Fun!

This is what she looked like earlier today. A lot of white on the sofa. I do like the sofa with more cad yellow light on it. The yellow in this photo is nickel Azo gold a rusty gold.

Thought u might want to see her pretty face that wuz up close. I do actually like her better now. Now to get her a little wilder and crazier.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 457 – My Diebenkorn

October 10, 2015October 11, 2015Leave a comment

Erica WIP 20×30 painted this morning at life modeling session at USC Aiken. She still needs a lot of work I think. Like fixing her saggy right Tata. I am also not enamoured of the greyish flesh color. And twitch her mouth to the left a bit.

Richard Diebenkorn in his studio from an old Horizons magazine.

We have been studying Richard Diebenkorn who was an abstract expressionist and a Bay Area painters an influential west coast group starting in the 50s.
A Beginners guide to Diebenkorn at

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/richard-diebenkorn-beginner-guide from his recent retrospective at the British Royal Academy.

Coffee by Diebenkorn.

Diebenkorn. Don’t know the title. It is more similar to my painting I color.

Diebenkorn Don’t know the title.

Bay Area painter Nathan Oliviera love the way it seems to fly.

I would love to try Oliviera’s style but I don’t know where you would start. More about Oliviera http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/november/nathan-oliveira-obit-111710.html

Other Bay Area painters are Elmer Bischoff, Thiebaud, David Parks and Thiopolis Brown.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 454 – inky month

October 7, 2015Leave a comment

Really like this sketch with one blot in my copy book. The guys head. Oooopsss.

I actually rearranged the people at the inner bean to fill up my sketch. I started with the girl on the left and then the guy. The other two ladies were actually sitting behind him. Decided to move them. My guy needed company.

This was drawn Monday in class while I waited for the teacher. I like her though I think both of these will look better when I paint them.

Spent the day hiking all over Aiken looking for pictures to paint. I cajoled Adrian into modeling on the bench downtown. She’s a pretty girl.

And what’s not to love about a pile of hats?!!

And fr the postman NOT to look at the camera and act like he was working.

The parish hall at St Thaddeus where I stood in an ant hill taking photos.

I mean you look UP not down dont u?!

Itch itch itch.

Something about the guy and his truck. Maybe the shadows?! Or all that red yellow and orange?!

Thanks for reading.

Margaret who is ready for a nap xxxx

Day 436 – Ben

September 18, 2015September 18, 20152 Comments

Ben – watercolor on crescent watercolor board 28″ x 20″ SOLD!!

This painting has taken about three weeks working on it off and on.

Here are a few in progress photos of it. I use my cell phone to stand away from the painting and judge it’s progress.
His legs seem a bit short but I have measured and measured against the original photo and they are right. The photo is just taken at an off angle.

Thanks for reading!!

Margaret xxx off to sketch live at Arts in the Heart. Eeeekkkk!!!

Day 424 – Yes it’s SuNdAy!!!

September 6, 2015September 6, 2015Leave a comment

Ilenia full sheet 22x 30″ 140# Kilimanjaro for sale. Email me at m c m h u n t @ me.co m if she needs to come live with you.

As you may know I usually post the life modeling session on Saturday but Miss Ilenia was misbehaving. Or maybe it was the painter?! 😳

Before I start wanted to remind you that if you haven’t seen Mr Yow doing Chinese painting on my Facebook wall you should. It’s only 4 minutes. https://m.facebook.com/MargaretMccarthyHunt?ref=bookmarks

I am going to make a mental checklist or maybe I should write it down to review before I start painting. Meditate on it. Put it under my pillow and sleep on it. Put it on the bathroom mirror.

She was drawn with a #4 Isabey sable watercolor brush w a grey that was mixed with everything in the corners of my palette. Twenty minutes sketching. When you use a paintbrush on watercolor paper you have to think about where each line goes. Trying for no do overs.

ChEcKlIsT:

No head smaller than 4″ EvEr!!

Shoulders even?!

Arms the right length?!

Eat in the right position?!

Start painting on the face first. (The face makes me nervous so I tend to start on it after I do the body. NOT good because in a two hour drawing session I run out of time. Since I tend to slap paint on when I get in a hurry guess what I do?! Not a good look on a face!! )

And last shadows even across the face?? (Aka shadows on face should NOT Be darker than the body. Gives a beard effect. Not good on a pretty young girl!!!)

Ps only use burnt sienna and cerulean on a young girls face or the shadows get too heavy. Charles Reids rule and he is THE Master!! Www.charlesreidart.com

The first forty minutes including sketching. A Quin coral and french ochre wash. Both are transparent. Raw Sienna and cerulean shadows.

Next forty minutes. Mistake number one on the face. Eyebrow and eye too dark and heavy. She had dark eyes but using burnt inner and ultramarine made them TOO dark. Next time repeat the mantra burnt sienna and cerulean only. The eyebrow is too long too. No shadows Around the eye make them look pasted on.

Also lost the edges of the back of her hair so she would not look cut out and glued down. It makes your eye look at her face not her hair.

After Life modeling. Two hours. I put her down in the parking lot and took her pic in the noonday sun.

She needs some background to make her PPP. I chose green because it’s the opposite of pink or red. But oh my gosh what’s wrong with that face?!

Lots of minor things. Eat was a little low. The mouth too down turned. The eye shape off. Forehead a hair too narrow and TOO round. Otherwise she was looking great.

After a lot of twitching around I am happy with her. Shoot me an email if she needs to come live at your house!!

Now my biggest question is crop closer or leave full sheet?! Leaning toward the cropped version. It follows the rules of thirds and I like it best. Which one do you like best?!

Tomorrow will tell you how I did the background. It too was rough for a while but really like it ALOT now.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 423 – A Demo

September 5, 2015September 5, 20158 Comments

We had the pleasure of watching Mr Yow of Northern China an acclaimed artist of the Lu Chin school do a demo and explain what his paintings mean last Wednesday.

I have three videos of him painting the horse but I Can NOT upload them to WordPress. I will be uploading them to my Facebook business page where you can see them at https://m.facebook.com/MargaretMccarthyHunt?ref=bookmarks

It was fascinating to see him paint. This took four minutes for him to paint.

Thru an interpreter he explained that he ponders his subject for a few days and then paints it quickly with a large chinese ink brush and ink on rice paper which he ripped off a large roll.

In China they do not have watercolors or pencils – only ink. So all drawing, painting, and writing are done with ink.

Also different artists specialize in one area. His is the horse. One artist specializes in shrimp painting. Really!!

The calligraphy is actually a poem that tells explains how he feels about the painting.

This is the granddaughter he hopes to have one day. The calligraphy tells that story of his hopes for his granddaughter.

All Chinese children grow up doing calligraphy with a brush in school.
He also said that the chop, the red squares, can be a name, a nickname or something else.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 419 – College again!?

September 1, 2015September 1, 2015Leave a comment

On Monday and Wednesday I am auditing a painting class at a local college. SCARY stuff. NO PeNcIL allowed?! But he’s the boss so NO pencil. Should be interesting.

He said if we can draw with a pencil we can draw with a brush. Hmm?! As I said he’s the boss he knows.

Here’s the sketch drawn with my paintbrush and a very watery burnt sienna. I hope I get the hang of this soon. Maybe I just need to practice sketching with my paint brush. My size 4 Isabey.

Probably needed more painted information on the page. And darker paint?! No idea.

Had a lot of trouble getting the head small enough. Not sure why but I did. Couldn’t be that I sketched it too large could it?!

Not only was his head to big his neck which is slim is massive. Oops!!

Ok so I cheated and got out a watercolor pencil because I was getting so frustrated with the head. The light purple areas around the head are where I narrowed the head. I also ended up lifting the beard and the sunglasses.

Lifting is easy to do on good cold press Wc paper like this fabriano. Just dampen it a bit with a brush and left off with a CLEAN paper towel or Kleenex. No puffs allowed they have lanolin in them. Not good for watercolors.

Another day another page. I hope I didn’t post this one already.

Onward and upward my painting partners.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret ️xxx

Day 416- It’s Saturday again!!

August 29, 2015Leave a comment

You know what that means – Life Modeling at USC Aiken. I am very happy with my painting today. Ilena might get a few tweaks but she’s done for now.

It was a great pose and the drawing went well. I didn’t even use head measurements til the end just to check if she was in good order. It took about twenty minutes to draw this sketch.

TIP: The drawing was started with the shoulders matching the diagonal line of the models shoulders. Same for the arms and leg angles. You imagine drawing a straight line thru the shoulders and start with that line.

The outline of the head was added still matching the angles of the models head.

Here she is after about an hour of painting. Still a lot to do but looking good. The rust color is Quin Sienna or burnt orange. Not sure which. Flesh is Quin coral with a dab of yellow ochre added. The Blues are mostly cobalt. Hair burnt umber and ultramarine blue.