Griffith 140 cold press arches. Not my favorite painting. Stan Millers grandson. Stan does phenomenal portraits and has some great YouTube videos.
I will say that by taking his demo at Watercolor Live I have saved myself the trouble of taking a class from him in person which Mike had wanted to do before covid. Stan doesn’t want you to interpret the person but to paint an identical likeness. He’s very 123 so easy to follow but as my long time teacher Al Beyer said don’t worry abt the likeness unless they are paying you for it.
That said Stan has some absolutely gorgeous watercolors and rightly so he has made his living for forty years selling and teaching it.
I should add that I could soften a lot of edges with the Mr Clean eraser if I wanted to. I did the one on his right cheek with it and the arches paper was just fine with it. I pulled it down his cheek a couple of times and they did the trick. I will say one of the things I don’t like abt this portrait is all the hard edges which of course I could soften.
TIP: I cut the Mr Clean Eraser up into smaller wedges so I don’t have to deal with the whole big eraser which is sponge sized.
Sometimes I seem better at drawing paintings than actually getting them painted. Hopefully tomorrow.
Daisies so I tweaked it a bit more today. I have to say Irena Roman gave the best directions. I wrote them down during her session at Watercolorlive 2023 then offline I religiously followed them. The only thing I would do differently is make a bigger one. All that work and it’s only 1/4 sheet of fabriano 300# cold press. Next one at least a half sheet.
Usually pouring you mix the colors on this page. Can’t wait to try Linda Bakers approach but this one you mixed them in a cup, masked the figure and sprayed the sheet with a spray bottle then flooded it with three layers of color.
The masking was endless ruined a brush in the process and took a half an hour of hard running to get off but it’s definitely interesting to play with. Didn’t make a huge mess.
Colors used. Well only five or six. Inanthrodone blue dioxizine purple viridian ultramarine violet and quin gold for the flooding.
Cad yellow aureolin cobalt teal and a few oddball greens for the leaves and details. Thalo blue added to the mix of blues for the jar.
I actually used a 2 and a 4 Isabey kolinski painting these. I don’t know when I last used those brushes. An 8 is small for me!
Last night off the back porch.
Margaret xoxoxo who forgot to upload this yesterday. Oops.
Almost done. Twelve hours or so just today on this 1/4 sheet. Fabriano Artistico cold press 300#
Endless drawing. Third time. First trace was wrong second draw was lifted by masking. Spent three hours redrawing. Or was it four. 🙃🙃🙃😵💫
Now to figure out where to put the masking on the bottle. 😳😵💫

Jar masked. Kept dipping the brush in soapy water and drying it off. Also dumped the masking in the lid. Went much easier after I did that. I think asking the whole letter and lifting the mask to paint the dark will be easier than masking the highlight around each one. We shall see
Masking on jar removed. I think it looks awful. so hard to soften those edges that masking leaves.
Quitting for now. Need to work on the jar some more esp 1858 BUT my hands and shoulder are DONE.
Finally standing back from it i think it looks amazing if I do say so myself. since it’s sucked up most of my life for the last few days glad it does.
She showed us her home studio today. I want one like hers.
The background is poured. A whole lot of options for messy Margaret to flood the world with blue. Eeek.
A whole Lot Of Masking. Ruined the old paint brush I was using. Oh well.
One pour down and two to go. So far so good. It’s a mix of inathradone blue ultramarine violet dioxizine purple and viridian.
Bytw I covered my chair seat which is cloth w plastic put on my old slippers and an apron wished I had a plastic one. 😳
Pour number 2. Looks dangerous and a total mess. Number two dry. Supposedly it keeps the paint transparent. Not to sure abt that. Last pour is now drying. I added quin gold to the mix per the instructors directions. Amazing how dark it got.
Last pour and no catastrophes yet!! 🙃😂. Next up removing all that masking. Can’t see how this was better than a wash. Hmm
Be sure to check out Irenas site. Her paintings are phenomenal.
In the middle of all this I was making my friend Mikes Cream of chicken rice and mushroom soup. DH said it was the best soup ever. He even cleaned up the kitchen. Yeah. Margaret xoxoxox
I added a lot of darks to it and used a gel pen to add more whites. Gotta love a gel pen. The quinacridones had smeared when I removed the masking fluid from the stamens. Tried gouache. Of course that didn’t work. So the white pentel gel pen came to the rescue.
Here it is before I darkened it. I went to town adding darks. It wasn’t terrible before but like it much better now. Also tweaked this one some more. Tried splattering it do more fireflies would show but like the stamens they didn’t show up either. Maybe they will tomorrow. Can you tell what I did to it. This is before the latest tweak.
Margaret tired once again. Good tired though. I have how many left to do??Xoxoxoxo
In the dining room madly painting. I signed up for watercolorlive 2023. It’s all my friend Mikes fault. She talked me into it. What a mad three days of wild fun painting. Classes and seminars lasted from 10 am til 9 pm. Will be posting them the next few days.
My Swan from the hour Paint along with Shelley Prior one of 18 teachers we had . She was awesome. She held our hands and walked us thru it step by step. I am in love w my swan and will be checking out her extensive YouTube feed. Her instructions were clear step by step with no need to rush to keep up. This swan just glows. My favorite out of my stack of paintings. Most of the paintings I did. There are TEN still left to do that I didn’t get around to for various reasons.
This took abt five minutes and was Julie’s tip. A fun way to start the day and to loosen up. We were all tense. I mean 18 teachers and all those hours. Eeek. Out agenda. We were VERY busy. No potty breaks no lunch breaks. A good way to diet. Lol.
Next up the great Thomas Schaller. Now almost all the teachers supplied a sketch for us to draw before class started. This was NOT a drawing workshop but a painting workshop. For some reason. Thomas didn’t think we needed a drawing. Hmm. Off to a rocky start. I madly drew it and started flinging paint around.
On a half sheet. My perspective was off. Supposedly his odd idea of firefly houses. Who knew they don’t have fireflies in S California where he’s from. They got his attention in his new home in NYC. My husband loves it Me not so much. Fireflies half sheet 140lb. So I had to cram in time to tinker with it. It was really bothering me. The perspective was wonky. Hate that and all that glaring white paper on the top left screamed at me. Better. Still won’t be my fav. He can hang it in his mancave. Lol. Still may need more tinkering. Time will tell. Next up a portrait with Patricia Guzman a lovely painter from Mexico who specializes in indigenous people. She’s a realistic portrait painter not my bag but she was a great teacher. At some point I got tired of painting every wrinkle and quit. LOVE the way this painting turned out. 1/4 sheet arches 149 Cold press I think.
Every artist had a different kind of paper or color of paint so I just used what I had and matched it up as closely as I could from my stash. Did I say I have way too much paper?!
My friend Mike my cohort in art crimes I mean classes. We met at a Charles Reid class in Boone at Cheap Joes 8 9 years ago and been friends and Charles Reid worshippers ever since. we are going to have a weekly zoom meetup til we finish out pile of not done drawings. There are quite a few. EekAnother day another sunset. More tomorrow. My fingers are tired. Xoxoxox Margaret
Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art 