noodler creaper ahab – Page 3 – Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art

When I was a kid going to UGA we had to draw 150 drawings per art class each quarter. At times I took 3 art classes, a full load. That was 450 drawings besides 6 hours of class daily and lots of homework. We would run out of ideas for drawing.

One of my friends Carolyn Cates drew her shoes. I decided to draw my favorite Pappagallos. I loved these shoes. Expensive for a student but not meant for walking the campus in all weather. They were notorious for falling apart in a sudden rain shower.

Anyway, you are not here to hear me reminisce but to talk paint. That painting and the shoes have long disappeared so I decided it was time to recreate them.

I googled Pappagallos to see if there were any photos online. I didn’t find mine but I found a few similar pairs for sale on etsy.

Cute aren’t they?!

These are for sale on Etsy!!

Love these. Too bad they are the wrong size I would say SOLD!!

These pics revived forgotten details like the blue striped interior, the turquoise sole, the small stacked heels.

So I drew my old long gone favorite Pappagallos with my Noodler Creaper Ahab.

I was cleaning up the lettering. I thought it was dry. OOPs, it wasn’t!!! A smear!!!

What to do??!

TIP– You can always glue some of that paper we all save over your mistakes. Glue some of my vintage ledger paper over it.

Oops, that didn’t work. Look at all the feathering around the pen line!

Finally I found a piece of scrapbook ledger paper. Tested it with my pen. NO feathering. Hallelujah!! Modge podge it down!!

TIP- Modge podge is great for gluing down great for SECURELY gluing paper down in your art journal. Learned that from Mary Ann Moss!! Thanks Mary Ann!!

Here it is finished?! Wait – no it needs something in that wide border. What?

FINISHED Finally!!!

Colors? Dark blue cobalt outer border and a double black line done with my Noodler helped. And the ultramarine blue line around the title with another double black line helped to make it pop. I am
Not a faded out kinda girl. Vivid and bright is me!!

Once again contrasting colors helped with that. For the background I used yellow ochre with a little grey mixed from burnt sienna and cerulean. The cobalt blue border made it pop. The cobalt also brings out the blue bows on the shoes.

The green is manganese blue and yellow. The almost black dark on the bows and x’s is ultramarine blue and burnt umber.

And that’s it. Go forth and paint your shoes. The brighter the better. Maybe some of the snazzy sneakers in wild colors! And use contrasting colors. You will be glad you did.

Thanks for looking!!!

Kind of describes my day. Today I signed up for Fine Arts America. You can sell prints through them. Don’t go look. So far after four hours of trying to scan not a thing ready to upload. Scanners are not usually so difficult. Hopefully problems will be resolved shortly.

This is another fast slow painting I did yesterday. Clutter on my Art Table aka Kitchen Table -This was fun…think I should have colored the letters? I really wanted a neon green to go whang…settled for cad yellow new gamboge and maganese blue which is a brilliant blue.

I knew what colors I was going to use because Lime is my favorite color but I can not wear it. Makes me look yellow. Not a good look!!

Pink goes with lime and so does purple…so picking the colors was easy. Splattered with purple on the pink and a darker blue violet on the bottom.

The pink is quinacridone magenta. The purple is made with the manganese and Quin magenta. Top splattered with the purple. Bottom splattered with some darker blue violet. Aka I added more blue to my purple mix.

Flipping thru my almost full sketchbook I had the thought that I had drawn/written a book. Yes it’s about my life but still a book. People are always telling me to make a picture book and I tell them too many pages. It takes 32 drawings to make a picture book. And I have filled 70 pages. Maybe I will rethink that picture book?!

Thanks for looking!!!