Day 108 - Charles Reid Day 3

The blogathon continues...only 108 consecutive days of posting now!!

Today we were allowed to chose from sets of old black and white photos with which  to do value studies. We used a range of 1-6.  1 is white, the lightest white, and 6 is black the darkest dark.   One of the photo was of John Singer Sargent, the master of watercolor.  I had NOT wanted to do it again because I made a hash out of it last March at Spruill the last day of class.  Today I paid rapt attention. Took copious notes and this is what I did!!

I am quite pleased with the way he turned out. I used lots of color but not too much.  Got some color mingling going on...I think it has a nice glow. I actually did things like put on color and pulled it out with a wet brush so it was not so heavy.  Should have done that on the flowers yesterday. 1/2 sheet Fabriano cold press.

Colors...skin cad red light, cad yw light, raw sienna and ultramarine in face shadows with a touch of carmine under the nose. Other colors...yellow ochre, viridian and chrome oxide in the grass with raw sienna, cobalt and ultramarine blue touches.  Clothing - raw sienna, cobalt, burnt sienna.  I know there are more but I left my notebook back at the classroom...sorry.  

The sky is my favorite easiest sky ever...I slung a watery cerulean across the sky.   I rolled the brush into it...presto chango ...instant clouds!! 

Lots of dripping and splattering and dripping to get to this point.  

This is the one I painted in March when I took his class at Spruill Center in Atlanta.  NOT so bad as I remembered but not as good as the one I did today I think!  I think I actually used a Mr. Clean Eraser to wipe out the too dark darks and repainted alot of Mr. Singer himself.  The background is the original one.

Charles Reid's demo from today! He is so fabulous to watch paint.  He twitches the brush here, twitches it there and magically a person or flower appears...its nothing short of amazing.  I tried to buy his magic paint brush but its not for sale...maybe I will get there in 57 more years of practice.  He has been painting since he was 14..he's now 78...this is what 64 years of painting will get you!

Just wanted to add that Charles Reid is a terrific teacher.  He and his wife Judy are just the nicest down to earth people.  He may paint with the stars but he's a real person. They both try to do anything they can to facilitate the class!  Thanks Charles and Judy Reid!!

Thanks for looking!!

Day 107 - Charles Reid Class #2

Dad's American Journey Paint The two tubes of paint are old Cheap Joes American Journey paints that I inherited from my dad.  He was never much of  a watercolor painter so these tubes were about 25 years old and still worked great! With that in mind I did buy another ultramarine blue. One more session of Charles Reid style painting will finish this one off!!  The brush is one I bought for the last Charles Reid class I took back in March. Dad's going to be tickled that I painted his paint when he sees it this weekend. 

Our group got THE TOUGHEST flowers in the room to paint...even Charles Reid said they were. However I am pleased with the way they turned out. A little nontransparent BUT on the whole I like it.  They were tough because they were a rusty red with the backs of the petals yellow...HUH??!

You would not believe the colors I tried in an effort to paint these. I tried  vermilion, quinacridone red, burnt sienna, aurelin, yellow ochre, ultramarine blue AND a very dark purple..ALOT of negative painting too...mostly with combos of vermilion and rust with purple and ultramarine blue added to it.

This is the setup minus my paintbrush and two tubes of paint.  I scrunched the objects together because I thought they were too strung out yesterday. We didn't have a focal light source on the flowers which was a little bit of a problem.  

This was one I played with trying to get the colors to mingle more on the paper.  I actually like it better though its not finished by a long shot.  I think I painted this in about 20 minutes at the end of class and I actually like where it was going better than the first one. Practice practice practice!


Charles finished his morning demo a few minutes early today so we were lucky enough to get to tour the Cheap Joe's facilities.  Joe himself led our tour.  He's just a sweet lovely man.  There's a gallery of his wonderful watercolors as well as other teachers and some of the employees.  We got to see his man cave office, the order center, the employee lunchroom complete with a monthly birthday cake celebration AND a scale!  Nice big windows with views.  Then it was off to tour the warehouse.  To say it was huge well is an understatement.  At least as big as two football fields.  Joe said he could teach us to fill an order in under three minutes no problem.  We also got to meet his top employee Robert who packs the thank you gift you get with every Cheap Joes order.

To say that the staff and owner of Cheap Joes bent over backwards to make our week PeRfEcT would be an understatement.

If we thought we wanted something from the store not a problem...we run a ticket.  If it was only in the warehouse it magically appeared in no time flat!!

The only way he could improve our experience is if he added a dorm and a dining hall!! :)

Our morning demo.  Watching Charles Reid paint is like watching a magician wave his brush and create magic.  A daub of paint here a daub there and magically the flowers appear.  Just totally enthralling to watch him paint, and Cheap Joes makes sure we can see every stroke in a large flat screen tv set up so everyone can see the teacher working. I painted that same wine bottle yesterday.  WHY doesn't it look like his??!

Charles Reid's set up!

Charles Reid paints!

The wonderful Judy Reid, Charles' wife, retired Kindergarten teacher, aka the Boss, loves to tell stories and make jokes.

After class a classmate, Diana and I went on an adventure looking for old barns and beautiful mountains to photograph.  This is a charming church we found about ten miles out of town down a winding mountain road...on HWY 140 I think!  A beautiful drive that Joe sent Diana and I on in search of gorgeous views.

A view round every bend in Hwy 140...lots of great barns!!

Thanks for looking!!

Day 106- Day 1 with Charles Reid!!

I am at Cheap Joes taking a class from the awesome Charles Reid...the author of 12 books with North Light and many dvds on how to paint like Charles Reid.

Even Joe himself of Cheap Joes is taking the class!! Two days of flower painting and hmm two more days of value studies.  

Cant say enough about how great everyone at Cheap Joes is.  The classroom is just terrific.  We can see every stroke on the HUGE flat screen tv in front of the room.  We each have our own work table, lots of great light, terrific catered lunch, AND last but not least there were guys to help us schlep our stuff from our cars to our tables!! Going to have to take another class at Cheap Joes!!

This is what I painted today.  I am oh so more pleased with it than any flowers I painted in his class last spring.  I actually got the idea of negative painting. I didnt destroy my whites and lights like the daisies...last time I made a hash out of them.    My only critism of this painting is that the wine bottle and pumpkin look lost over on the left by themselves and the vase is DEAD center...never a good look. 

So I cropped it...think this one looks ever so much better than the whole picture.  The bottle and the pumpkins look good but ..hmm that can be a whole other painting right?!

Which one do you like better??

This is the master Charles Reids painting from today. Is it not AWESOME!! I love everything about it.  Notice his wine bottle touches the flowers UNLIKE mine.  

Enough for now. I could do another whole post on the great fun Mike and her husband Allan and I had going to Mast General after class taking pictures of great barns and pumpkins in the valley there BUT I am tired and taking a shower!! 

More tomorrow!!

Thanks for looking!!

105 - Pig Fun

The Final Version

...at least till someone thinks of something I should add to it.

Watching one of Mattias Adolfsson's instructional videos during his Sketchbookskool class, he said we could draw anything that we could imagine. One time I spent HOURS trying to draw a real pig that made me happy with its pigness.  I still have it in an old moleskine around here somewhere.  He said to try because though it might not look exactly like a real pig everyone would recognize it as a pig..so I did...then I drew another and another as I thought of funny things for them to do....and I think they look like pigs.

I watched the second homework video on Sketchbookskool.  I realized my pigs fit the bill if I added a few story lines. 

I added funny things..that's my mother saying NO sun between 10 and 2...not that she looks like a pig but she told that to us every summer at the beach. ...and made us stick to that rule.

Mudbath- What else would a pig do but take a mudbath...why not in a clawfoot tub??

Then my family joined in and decided the Bottoms up big had to be a BBQ pig. It does look like one from a southern whole hog BBQ...and its accompanied by our favorite BBQ - Carolina BBQ.

Version Two

Before I added the conversations.

I inked in it with my Pentel Brush Pen.  It's drawn in a regular Moleskine which as I have said before does NOT like watercolor AT ALL...great for drawing on but NOT for watercolor!!  These pages are very warped and not flat like a watercolor should be.

The original pencil sketch of the pigs.

Day 104 -Sketchbookskool homework!?

Sketchbookskool is alot of fun.  This is a homework assignment from Mattias Adolfsson.  He of the very intricate off the wall fabulous sketches.

The finished sketch

This was a lot of fun to do. I also drew quite a few pigs. I do wish I could do these things quickly. Hours later it's done. I won't use my regular moleskine again for watercolor. I forgot how badly it behaved with watercolor.

Before the watercolor

I used pitt pens on it at this stage.

Double page spread in my regular large moleskine.

I don't remember anything about my first day of school other than I had a book bag. Kindergarten was a long time ago.

I am sure my mother dressed me in Mary Janes, ankle socks, white shirt with a Peter Pan collar and a plaid skirt with suspenders. I am also sure my unruly curly hair was waving or frizzing despite moms best efforts.. I was the smallest child always in school.  I started first grade in a 4T!!  Really!!

I did go back over the finished sketch with my pentel brush pen. I found a couple of packs of cartridges when I was cleaning out the drawer looking for my camera battery charger.  

Day 103 - WIP Large Watercolor

Looking Glass Creek, Mt. Pisgah, NC 

This is a WIP a Work In Progress that I am working on...I guess you all will get to follow the progress.  It's 20x30 so it's going to take a while to finish it.  I certainly would HATE to mess it up.  I used the usual colors...aurelin, raw sienna, cerulean blue plus some dark purples made with indigo and vermilion as well as cobalt purple.  I also made greens with the green hematite and that green gold from Holbein that I NEVER can remember. Rocks are zoitite mixed with cobalt. Lovely transparent grey!!

For those of you who did not read the first post about this WIP, this is how I have done it SO far!!

First I drew it, then I masked the trees and some of the leaves...NO ALOT of the leaves.  Also the reflection on the water.

Next I washed in the sky with cerulean...very pale wash.  I daubed in the tree leaves with a green mix on a sponge. I also daubed on some yellows and golds with the sponge.  

Detail

Then I washed over the green by wetting the greens down with my brush...not adding more green...I did that on just SOME of them.  I washed some purples over areas of the green to make the darks in the rhododendrons.  The purples were very wet and thinned in some areas more than others.  I washed the yellows down with a nice light grey to give some shadows to it.

Detail

After that I started daubing in yellows and lime greens in the tree tops.

After that I painted the leaves along the rivers edge...raw sienna with some purples and golds added.

I added LOTS of rocks.  Zoitite and cobalt blues with purple now and then.  The rocks still need alot more work...the trees just a little...next up...hmm the water??!  I dont know. I will think about that tomorrow!!




OH and I got a fabulous new car today!! A Prius...I LOVEEEE it!!



Thanks for looking!!

102 - Maybe I will do 150 days?!

It's becoming an endurance contest...if I have blogged for 100 days maybe I can do it for 150??  We shall see...lots going on...In the meantime I have signed up for sketchbookskool as if I wasn't doing enough already.  Our first assignment was draw a recipe.

I picked my sweet father in law's famous Cheese Straws because today would have been his 88th birthday and I wanted to remember him.  Here's the finished recipe.  Try it..I LOVE his cheese straws.  I used to get a large bag for my birthday and another for Christmas. 

This is how I made it...first I made a sketch on a scrap of paper.

Then I drew it in black ink.  Its painted with watercolor.  As usual I used LOTS of cerulean.  I can hardly paint now without cerulean.  The green is cerulean and aurelin yellow.  All the yellow is aurelin.  The greys are burnt sienna and cerulean.  The reds are quinacridone red.   Orange is aurelin and quin red. It makes a very transparent orange. 

 I debated over the lettering around the edge...thought it was a little light in this version so I lettered over it with a fine point kuretke marker.  The big cursive lettering was done with my Pentel brush pen, my very favorite pen.  The black line drawing was done with a pigma pen.

And this is the final version.  It was alot of fun.  Next I am going to print out copies of this as a memory of Hunt, as we called him, for family and friends.  

This was so much fun I think I will do a few more!!

Day 91 - Double page pumpkins

Here it is amid the pumpkins and the painting clutter.

I seem to be addicted to pumpkins lately...this is the fourth or fifth painting I have done of them.  And I should add I bought them all!! I have four huge pumpkins and a variety of smaller ones as well as squash.  We are going to be eating ALOT of pumpkin bread and pumpkin pies in the future. Lucky for us WE LOVE pumpkin pie, and pumpkin bread is not bad either!!

Here it is before I painted it.  Its drawn with my kuratake pens that I got at Binders.  Looking at it...I should have put one of the word blocks either vertical OR down on the bottom to break up the three in a row.  Neater printing might have been good too BUT I was in a hurry as usual.

Mind you I did research too to find out exactly what each of these pumpkins and squash were called. Not easy searching on a pumpkin called Ghiradelli...all you get is chocolate...so if you decide you want to read more about pumpkins just search on pumpkin varieties.  Here's one of the pages I used http://www.hauntedbay.com/thelab/pumpkin/pumpkinvarieties.shtml

All but one of these pumpkins are heirloom so I can save the seeds and grow some next year.  Two are French - the Cinderella and the Fairytale. One is Australian- The Jarrahdale or Ghirardelli.  The Pink Porcelain Doll is a hybrid BUT when you buy one this year part of the money goes to breast cancer research.

FINALLY I heard you say that!! Here it is up close and personal!! 

About the watercolor.  I only used transparent yellows and reds to paint this.  Hansa Yellow and Aurelian as well as Quinacridone Magenta to make orange.  I coated the orange word blocks with Nickel Azo Gold to brighten it even more.  

The green Cucurbita block also got a coat of the Nickel Azo Gold as did parts of the Carnival Squash.

The Cinderella pumpkin is fun to paint...use a very holey sponge to layer it with transparent oranges and top it off with quin rose to give it the veiny look.  I did the same thing on the Jarrahdale pumpkin using grey greens and finally a bluey green mix.  You have to let it dry between layers...thats the hardest part.  If you get it to heavy wad up a kleenex or a paper towel to blot some of the color off.  

The purpley background...started as cerulean and yellow ochre. I really think the purpley color made the pumpkins pop ALOT.   I wish I had taken a photo of it with just the cerulean.   I decided to change it to hematite and cobalt blue - both transparent colors.  I literally just slopped it on both times with a very large paint brush.  This whole thing was painted with one size 8 kolinsky sable brush.

Now go forth and paint pumpkins!! 

Day 90 - Ghiradelli Pumpkin

I sat down to try out the watercolors on a mixed media book and was going upstairs to sew. I didn't like the paper. Rooted around for another piece of paper and next thing I was painting more pumpkins. This is how that turned out.

              L-R Carnival Squash, Baby Boo, Jarrahdale or Ghirardelli 

 This is painted on old Canson paper block of my dad's with Holbein and Daniel Smith watercolor paints.  That green ghiradelli pumpkin was a pain.  It went to grey for a while.

L-R Carnival Squash, Baby Boo, Jarrahdale or Ghirardelli 

For a while it looked like this.

Then I decided the shadows weren't right under the pumpkins. Back to the paintbrush.

L-R Carnival Squash, Baby Boo, Jarrahdale or Ghirardelli 

And then I decided the Jarrahdale's shadows were to heavy too grey. I got my handy dandy watercolor eraser out aka Mr Clean Magic Eraser and whipped them off.  The canson stood up to the rough treatment quite well.

L-R Carnival Squash, Baby Boo, Jarrahdale or Ghirardelli 

Here it is now. About perfect but who knows maybe more work on the orange and white pumpkin? NOT tonite.

Detail. I got the veiny speckled look by using a chunk of holey sea sponge. You need a lighter undercoating. Then lightly sponge another coat on. Repeat till you are happy with the texture.

Thanks for looking!!

Day 89 More Pumpkins

And I have been painting for far too long today. Five six hours. This is a WIP work in progress. Not sure it's done but is for today.

So far today!

A lot of you enjoyed the post a couple of weeks ago that followed a flower painting from beginning to end. Decided to do that again today.

The Set Up

The Sketch

Sketched with a light gray watercolor pencil. I darkened it so you can see it.

Under washing base colors.

Well under way. Then my mother called. I couldn't take pics while I talked to her.

A detail as it is now.

Now to let it sit so it can tell me if it's done. Tomorrow a different pumpkin? I have at least three more pumpkins and three more squash.

Thanks for looking!!

Day 88 - sometimes you need more work!

FYI: This is called a Fairytale pumpkin not a Ghiradelli and is a very old French heirloom pumpkin. I love the names of these odd pumpkins.


    
                 Fairytale Pumpkin with three JBLs and one White Boo

This painting just didn't seem done to me so I intensified the colors, darkened shadows, added darks to the straw.

Fairytale Pumpkin

Here is how it looks now. These pumpkins are really bumpy and pitted. Now it looks it. I think it looks slot more vibrant, don't you?