Did a great hand today. But darn what happened to her eyes?!
I decided on a do over. There’s a lot I like about this painting but darn the right eye. I did try to fix tomorrow or add it to my bin pile. Lol. Or the compost heap.
A Tip! I sometimes turn paintings into a gray scale photo to check the darks. I also do this when I paint from photographs.
Tomorrow I will post version two after I tinker with her some more.
Thanks for reading
Margaret xxx
when you are ahead. But first
Happy Fourth of July! From Brian Andres storypeople.com Obviously he’s had some experiences.
Things were going well after the first forty minute session. But THEN
I started adding more purple and Orange. Maybe because I still had an hour and a half to paint and didn’t bring any extra paper. Oops.
Should have stopped at this point. Oops.
And now she’s too orange and too purple. I have plans to further mess her up but will wait till tomorrow to proceed with the painting torture.
More tomorrow or maybe I will throw her in the bin?! Stay tuned. Will Erica survive her torture or not?!
Update! I decided to torture her some more.
Lightened the purple around her left eye. Need to work inner nose some more. I also lightened the oranges on her left arm and her hand. She has fingers again. Thanks for reading.
MArgaret with only four more days till I have posted everyday for a year!! ️Xxx
I repainted it. This one is larger than the first one. 12×18
I am much happier with this painting than the last. If I could change anything it would to have used a light hand on the porch across the house. I would have liked to have done it more like the next picture. Maybe one more go round?! Probably not.
This was mostly painted with my Isabey mops. Next time I am putting up all my paint brushes but the mops so the small ones don’t call me. You paint a lot looser with the mops. Try them. You will love them.
Really like this glow. I should have taken a break and thought a while before I painted the bottom half of the painting.
Colors used : cad orange and Aureolin yellow, cerulean, mineral Violet, cobalt, every green I have, Inathridone, burnt umber and vermilion to make the grey on the Palm trunks. Some Quin red.
Here’s version 1 of Island Dreaming. I actually do like it just wish I had not gotten the tower as dark as it is. Which one do u like best??
Thanks for reading.
Margaret ️xxx
Just thought I would trade you today with a few details of a redo on Island Dreaming. Who knows I may do a third one before I am happy with it. I do need to plan a little better. Ah the challenges of watercolor. Ultimately i lightened up the purple orange at the bottom and added some cobalt.
The beginning of the Palm trees. A mix of cad yellow light and Quin gold.
Juicy colors. The fun of watercolor is letting it do the playing. Of course the purple did not stay that dark darn it.
One more detail just to tease you. Will post the whole thing tomorrow. I think I used every green I own painting the palms and a few that I made.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
been trying to paint Palm trees again not sure how successfully. I tend to get heavy handed with them or get too heavy with the darks. Then I have to lift some of the darks. No wait ALOT of the darks. Thank goodness this is on Fabriano.
I under painted a lot of the trees and the building with light yellow. The green is Daniel smith green apatite. The purple is mineral Violet.
My favorite detail because I like the way the colors blended and a lot of lights. Cobalt mineral Violet and cad orange blended for the darks.
Colors used. Lots of mineral Violet and cad orange a fun combo when painted wet on wet. There’s a lot of orange made with Quin gold and Quin red too. It’s not opaque like the cad orange is.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Always one of my favorite people to hang out with my grandson Henry. I meant to post these a few days ago before I got bogged down in elephant mania. Still have at least one more elephant in mind.
These were done Fathers Day Weekend so they have been in the sketchbook for a week waiting their turn.
He’s very good at holding still only when watching his favorite tv shows or when reading. Otherwise a perpetual motion machine.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Now I am done. The letters are Reinked with platinum carbon black ink in my favorite Noodler creaper Ahab. A great pen and so reasonably priced. Mine was $20. And it holds cats of ink.
In my 93# Super Bee Deluxe sketchbook.
Problems problems. I guess that’s why I like watercolor. It’s prone to misbehave.
I had started out with a yellow green background to go with my band of “kente cloth”. It was terrible. I painted over it with green. Also bad. Just not so bad. So I added cerulean blue to it. Improved. Then I added some cobalt blotches. And was happier with it.
The cad red light outside band was to cover up some of my ink smears.
For a while it looked like this. Decided the blue band on the right had to go. Made it to match the right side by adding the same colors.
So what colors did I use on the elephants?! Quin gold and Quin Sienna mixed with a grey made by adding Inathradone to burnt sienna or burnt umber. The darks are made with the Inathradone with cad orange added to it while it was wet. I also saved a lot of whites which makes the elephants sparkle.
I do still need to go over the lettering. It always seems to dull out when I paint over it.
Thanks for reading!!
Margaret xxx
workout.
As you no doubt know I love sketching and lettering with my Noodler pens. They make such great lines. HOWEVER most bound sketchbooks do not like them. Well I don’t like the way the paper in them bounces when I try to draw on them leading by to stray marks I didn’t intend to do. I love the Strathmore 500 Mixed Media Paper but it feels oddly spongy and draggy to me when I use the pens on it.
Crosshatching – if you don’t use crosshatching the lines are streaky. Add in the cross lines the streaks go away.
NOT so with the Superbee. The letters are sharp and clear on the paper as are the sketches. There’s no drag on the pen so it’s easier to write the letters. Of course more practice would help. Big believer in practice even in art.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Rommel 6×9″
Decided to give it a work out last nite while watching the Secret Life of Elephants on GPTV last nite. This was the last sketchbI drew off tv the big bull elephant Rommel.
Most of Rommel was painted wet on wet to loose the edges. I downloaded several of Thomas Schallers videos from Northlight. Good deal for $13. Though he does not paint animals I thought why not try out his techniques on this elephant. He’s big on transparent colors, letting the colors blend on the paper and loosing edges by keeping the paint wet. I do wish II had thought to add in some blips of others colors like orange and purple but I can use my handy fine spray bottle and do that later.
This was a very wet painting. The Super Deluxe did not wrinkle anymore than a 140# paper would. I lifted some of the shadows off the left back leg and as usual it was easy to do with this super sketchbook.
Colors used Elephant and dirt – yellow ochre, burnt sienna, and Inathradone blue. Sky cerulean trees green Apatite and Inathridone.
I did a pencil sketch first. As you will see in a bit the sketchbook loves the pencil.
This is the sketchbook. Just in case you did not see the last post about it.
Another sketch of Rommel a huge bull elephant that showed up on the Samburu Reserve in Kenya where the show was filmed.
I really like the way this pencil sketch turned out so I doubt I will paint it. It was done with a cheap HB mechanical pencil from Office Max.
One thing that’s great about sketching off tv is that you can pause it. Only thing I don’t like about pencil sketching is its tendency to smear. I need to spray this with fixative.
Save the Elephants http://savetheelephants.org. The show was all about an effort that is being made in Samburu to increase the numbers of elephants which were dwindling drastically. They seem to be turning around now due to the efforts of Save the Elephants.
I love drawing animals and now want to go to Samburu on a sketch safari. Would that not be fabulous fun?! During dry season they flock to the water holes in Samburu, prime time for sketching or photography.
Think about it. I know I am.
More about the Super Bee tomorrow!!
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Nothing says summer like an heirloom tomato pie! I made two tomato pies today and since this recipe is frequently requested I decided to draw it.
I am going to take u thru it as the recipe evolved.
The pie fresh out of the oven. Lots of yellows, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, burnt umber, cad red light, green apatite and dark neutrals.
The ink sketch. I usually pencil in a recipe to be sure I don’t run out of room for anything. Then I ink it.
I laid in a yellow wash first. And dropped bits of yellow ochre, burnt sienna, burnt umber, cad red light, green apatite and dark neutrals while the pie was still wet.
Line green background added and more dark neutral around for the pies edge inside the crust.
I added the cad red line because as usual I smeared the bottom edge into the white. Maybe one day I will learn to keep my band out of the paint. MaYbE!! I can only hope. I also added more dark neutral around the edge of the pie inside the crust fluting and wiped some of the purple under the leaves off. Too purple.
Listening to a thomas Schaller video yesterday. He said you could tell when a painting is done when u start telling yourself I need to do one more thing. I Reinked the letters after I thought I was done not sure I like them.
I also sponged on a little dark neutral to make the surface shadows and it’s done.
I found this recipe from a book called ‘Pon Top Edisto when I was looking for my copy. It’s a great cookbook. Some people add onions. A little or a lot. Cooked or not. Thought garlic might be a tasty addition. And grits would be oh so tasty or fresh corn on the cob.
Thanks for reading
Margaret xxx
Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art 