Day 50 - A Portrait

That's the painting equivalent of skyrockets, right?!  I have a commission portrait that I have been working on.  It's done in acrylic.  

First I drew it and then I scrubbed in a base color on the raw canvas.

Then I started painting him.  I love using the flesh color made by Liquitex and  Buff for the skin.  I also used Nickel Azo Gold, Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue, White, Burnt Umber, Vermilion, Cad Red and Cad Yellow Light.  However I could not tell what color his eyes were from the photos I had of him.   Did I let that stop me? NO, I kept on painting!!

Here's a close up of the eye.

Except OH NO his eyes are a very bright blue...but that was an easy fix!!

I greyed the rusty shadows out by adding a light blue to them...scrubbing it in with a dry brush...you have to be creative when painting portraits with acrylic because it dries so fast.

Currently this is what he looks like right now...I am going to sleep on it and see if I decide to change him in the morning...you never know do you??  I do like to look at it a while to decide how to tweak him!! 

Thanks for looking!!

EveryDay Matters - Every Day In May - Day 1

Waiting for Daddy

My niece Virginia Ann loves to peer thru the window of the front door looking at the world outside.  WC on #140 Kilimanjaro Watercolor paper

The photo appears bluer for some reason than it really is...no idea why.

I was trying to loose some of the edges à la Charles Reid...had to scrap the dress and hair with my fingernail...really don't like doing that...but I do like the effect!  

One post down ....30 to go ...will I make it?

Watercolors Part THREE!!

So you all have been wanting to see what I have been up to...and here they are...Most were done in the last few months.  I will be posting more as I locate the pictures of several are sold or on loan.

If you are interested in purchasing one please email me at m c m h u n t @ m e. c o m for pricing.  Prices range from $100 -$500.

All sizes are approximate and may very SLIGHTLY!

Beachcombing

9x12

Watercolor

Watercolor Board

Angel Wing Begonias

8x10

Watercolor

(And yes I  grew this and so can you...most of my friends have children from this plant!!!)

SOLD!!!!Henry

I also do children's portraits on commission!

Watercolor 

Kilamanjaro Water Color Paper

Queen Conch

9x12

Watercolor

Watercolor Board

Tom, the Quilt Cat

15x20

Watercolor 

Watercolor Board

Pink Murex

5x7

Watercolor

Watercolor Board

Murex 

5x7

Watercolor

Watercolor Board

Giant Melongena

5x7

Watercolor

Watercolor Board

Lightening Welk

 5x7

Watercolor

Watercolor Board

Carolina Welk

5x7

Watercolor

Watercolor Board

Knobbed Welk

5x7

Watercolor

Watercolor Board

And so far thats it for 2013!! Though I may have time during the holidays to do one or two more...and a few are MIA...now where did I put the other shell painting!!?!

Beachcombing
one of my top favorites I have done this year!!

I forgot I had put it in a bag to be framed...seriously I have to empty the bags around here...found all kinds of things in the bag proliferation thats going on around here...both upstairs and in that cavernous garage of mine.

portrait of a princess

It was her birthday...she came to school all dressed up for her birthday party which was held after school at Primetime...every little girl deserves to be princess for a day ...right? bytw that p on her shirt stands for PRINCESS:> and of course she does have on her princess crown of pink fur with a pink heart jewel...guess i should have colored this one right?!

Kindergarten drawings

This is a quick sketch of one of our tiny little kindergarten girl...she kept wiggling so i had ot keep erasing....shes a very bright girl...can read just about anything that you give her to read

And i did a few drawings

they are lobbying for me to draw all the kindergarten kids for mothers day...thats 17 X 4...we shall see...here are a few of the ones that i have done...theres one more ...at work...


This is one of our sweet bright girls...shes such a good girl...she wiggled alot thought...so while it looks like her it could have been better...

And this is one of our sweet tiny boys...i thought he looked so cute with his valentine hat and his hoody ...so i drew him from the back...


I have been helping the kindergarten kids to draw while doing math....we talk about the shapes that make an animal like a bunny...an oval and a circle...and what should be in the picture...like grass...and they ALWAYS want a sun and clouds...

and i draw one for them and they try to draw it ...they do well as long as they know thier shapes...and if we keep this up they will!! Triangles make bows....rectangles for arms and legs...ovals for feet and bodies...you get the idea...they love it...

ANyone know the date??? the hmmm 17th?

Is it the 31st yet??? No school that day...and i wouldnt be bone tired...BUT i wanted to get this posted before i fell asleep...

I did this one twice because the first one i did in wc...was great till i painted the background...what was i thinking ...doing it in dark green...and it all blended together...so i printed another one and used my cp to color it...MUCH better with that background...too bad i cant sew them together and make the backgrounds blend!

Drew these while i was babysitting a class after school today...the one boy told me he could draw better than I could till another boy told him that i was the one that had drawn the picture of his little brother...well I HOPE I can draw better than an eleven year old...I did tell him that he was the best drawer I had run across at our school...and he is...he also specializes in back flips which hes learning at gym class...and teaching the rest of the class to do at recess...NO SPOTTERS...scary!!!....

One little boy is the son of a friend of mine...she told me i could spank him if i wanted...and of course she knew i wouldnt...but you know there is something funny about being able to say you can...they dont want to find out if you will...so they behave...i actually tried to draw him twice...both the redshirted boys...but the full faced one..he wouldnt hold still..the second one does look like him.

The cousins

is actually a grouping of a couple of pictures i took of the k kids dressed up in their sunday best or Easter best on Wednesday...these kids realy dont even know each other..well the two on the left do but they dont know the girl on the right...shes the one of barrette fame...her mom does such a wonderful job dressing and grooming her...shes always neat as a pin and dressed up so cutely...there are other kids that dress like she does but not on a daily basis....

OK i did this in the charles reid style...well i tried too...and it was easier doing one face at a time... i started with the one on the left working to the right...faces first( bytw i think the face on the right is the best), then dresses starting in the middle and then the legs and lastly the background...

I think they turned out well for my first wc of a human figure...the only others i have done have been with pen and wc usually wc pencils....one thing that following his way of painting does is that it keeps you from overpainting one area because once you are done he doesnt go back to the area other than small touches....anyway not bad i think

Hmm I am sure you are bored of my kids drawings

by now...BUT hey what can i say...i see a lot of kids and they LOVE to pose for me....tickles them to death that I draw them...yesterday after school I sat with six of my fav kindergarteners and we all drew together....but thats for tomorrow...i do have to brag on them ...they can draw as well as the fifth graders...but shhhh dont tell the fifth graders!

Oh about the sketches...really like the pencil lines of the first one better than the ink in the second...and i found that not all pencils were the same...even if they were #2...two diff pencils on the two pages...

A few more sketches of the kids....

the old one...and introducing the new one:

well this is an old one that i never posted...new ones coming soon to a blog near you...:> anyway...i thought the old one was kind of boring so i perked it up....bytw the kids LOVE it...we are going to copy some of the pages for them...a book??? i dunno....but the old copier is available and we both have plenty of copies....cant wait for field day...will have my moleskine in my pocket that day for sure!!!

.5 to go...Hallelujah....

at least till someone else thinks of a must do for me:>


I have to say i have really been amazed how changing one small line all of a sudden turns a face that was just a face into the person you were trying to draw...its almost magical...


I did cheat alittle trying to get these finished...they are drawn from pictures i took during honors day on Thursday...the two little boys are such wiggle worms and the girl...well i just wanted to get her done!! And i t was MUCH easier drawing them from the pictures...
SOO last nite at 12 pm it seemed like a good idea to wipe this sketch out and redraw it compleletly...with a pony tail instead of pig tails...and the new one looks just like her..almost photographic it looks so much like her......she has the most beautiful skin and it loses something in the black and white sketch...she won the highest average in kindergarten for accelerated reader this day!! YEAH'


OKAY i was looking throw these pictures...thinking he may look angelic BUTTTT hes not...he used to cry all the time but has come miles down the road..and only occasionally indulges in it now...and hes learning so much better...guess what cured him?? STICKERS...he will do anything to earn stickers and keep them on his behavior card...amazing the power of 1 cents worth of sticky paper!!

And this boy is going to break hearts when hes grown up...hands down the handsomest boy in kindergarten but oh sooo naughty....couldnt tell it in this picture...could you???

four more kids and only hmm is it two or three to go???

i think its actually 2 1/2...MY what a difference a day and a new sheet of paper can make...this is her ...as i told the kids...She came to visit us on the paper...its funny one little line will make them appear like magic...it happened several times with this set of pictures...

Someone asked how long it took...each one...maybe a half an hour...I started all of these differently than the others...i drew tick marks for the eyes and nose width which were all equal...and that really helped...then the nose and mouth and eyebrows...last was the outside shape of the face...backwards i think but seemed to work much better!!

The first two are a sweetie pie who i started yesterday and completely started over again today ...the new one looks just like her...she had to wait to be the very last one today because she got called to group and someone took her seat so she couldnt be first today like i promised her yesterday afternoon...she was just tickled to be drawn...one of the other little girls who i drew months ago pouted all day because i did not do her today...she had forgotten that i had done her...


This little boy was sooo tickled and pleased with his portrait once it started to look at him he could not hold still..kept racing around to see how he looked...say "thats me thats me" when i had to erase his nose and move it up he said "dont erase me dont erase me" hes sooo funny...i dont think he quit smiling all day...

This is the little girl with the famous hair bows and barrettes...she had on the prettiest shirt today...like she came dressed to have her portrait drawn...well i did promise her she was next...and she was!!! I think her nose is a touch long but everyone knows who it is...


This one is not done...everyone but me thinks it looks like him...even he thinks it looks like him!!! Stay tuned for more of this one!!!

some more kid sketches and a daily drawing

This is the little girl of the hairbow fame....she has the thickest hair braided and just full of all these neat barrettes....she even had poodles in her hair today...i think its a really cute drawing...she wants it and so do i....guess i will let her have it ...she got the character award at this six weeks honors day...so she deserves it!! She was sitting on the rug paying attention like a good girl during circle time...amazing how they grow up in one year...i think i had almost forgotten!
hope i am finally getting back in the groove with that....decided i had to make myself draw whatever was laying around when i had a spare moment...even if i didnt like it...i do like the swan and the darn i think its a sugar dish -hotel silver. the swan is mccoy and the dish is hotel silver my mom got somewhere probably at the market aka flea market but its really cool and different...and i have always liked odd ball ceramic animals...dont ask why ...i just do...i have a cat, a hippo, a couple of elephants and the swan...we use the swan for a napkin holder....and splenda in the sugar dish...

U finally got the this little girl right...she loves it...shes is such a pretty princess..This is the before sketch,,,,her eyese were not stratight on her face...one was higher than the other, her face was too long and her ears were too small....she finally decided to hold still for me today...


This is a tiny little boy who is just the sweetest thing...He just sprang right out of the paper in i bet 15 minutes or so...his hair is always slightly messy like he went to bed with it wet but I combed it for him...cant have his hair messy in a portrait can we??

This one still needs some work....shes coming along but not there...odd because the little boy just sprang right out of the paper...and the two girls have been a struggle....she wanted me to draw the decoration on her head...when i asked her if i shoudl give her long hair she said uhuh...she had asked me to give her more hair....so i did...

OK i have always wondered how journalers and altered art people have done these letters...but was watching one of the students do it and all of a sudden i went oh goodess that is sooo easy...heres what i did....

Some more kid sketches...do they count as

daily drawings since i seem to be doing them daily....the kids just LOVE them...the first one is just a preliminary sketch..thought you might find that interesting....he was soo funny he kept saying draw me draw me ms hunt and when I finally started after telling him he had to hold still...he tried very hard and would look at me around his nose to see if he was doing it right...of course since none of them hold still he was doing the best job of any of them!! he was too cute...hes the next one...will no doubt be bugging me tomorrow draw me draw me!


this is one of our girls...maybe in ten years...she looks too old...i think its the shape of her face...being a busy pretty princess she is hard to keep up with...more work is needed...

This one turned out pretty much perfect...hes a great kid...a real sweet heart..he was worried i wouldnt get all the buttons on his shirt or his stripes...funny things he worries about

This little kid is a redhead that will steal your heart..hes so genuine...and hes just sooo funny....with the most gorgeous red hair and a flock of freckles...he was trying to pay attention...