strathmore 500 – Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art

Squirrels are the bane of bird feeders. Pesky things. Ours are so bold. They leap and attack it or they climb upside down on the chain to gorge at the suspended feeder. They even use the screens on the nearby porch as a get away.

One of them was posing on the deck outside the window. I caught him actually behaving. Later on when one of them was hanging off the feeder upside down I decided to turn it into a Wanted poster after all they are thieves aren’t they?! So naughty.

He was drawn with Tombow Markers. I have four or five of them and used the range of greys to shade and sculpt him. Then I wet him down to let the colors mix on the Strathmore 500 mixed Media Paper. I don’t know why I use the Tombows because according to Roz Stendahl they are not archival. The colors are fugitive. So sad because they are such fun to use and give such a neat effects when wet.

Since I don’t have a brown Tombow I used caran d’ache watercolor crayons for the browns and yellows.

I also used a big white Pitt matker to make him look more fluffy especially on his tail. Love that pen!!!

I used a scrap of old yellow ledger paper because I didn’t like the original layout. If you can’t fix it glue over it and try again. And then it becomes mixed media, right?!

Stay warm. Thanks for looking.

Amazing that I am at 216 days of consecutive blogging. Onward. Hoping for 365 days!!

Last night I discovered one of Roz’s assignments was draw your pets everyday. Oopps!!

I did four last nite. I thought three were done. This is Zoe peering at me around her favorite feather pillows hoping I was done messing and could now pay attention to her. Done with Caran d’Arches Neocolor II on Strathmore 500 paper. They loved each other.

Here’s another one of Zoe done w watercolor on Strathmore 500. I used the water brush. Lots of blotchy washes. Not a good look!! I really think it was the watercolor brush. Hard to get a big wash going with drips of water.

After looking at this photo decided it wasn’t done. No background and some more color on that green and brown and blue pillow. Or maybe it just looks not done when you compare it to the first one?!