Watercolour and Bear

By Anita Murphy / January 16, 2009 /

I’m procrastinating – making phone calls, getting started with painting, studying and while I procrastinate I doodle – watercolour paint tubes and a little teddy bear.

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Urban Sketching

By Anita Murphy / January 15, 2009 /

A sketch for today. Sun was shining it was lovely and warm sitting in the sunshine for twenty minutes sketching this. Put the colour in when I got home. Taking a night off oil painting for some admin time. Sometimes you just have to sacrifice studio time for the more practical stuff. I really enjoy…

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Trees and Garden

By Anita Murphy / January 11, 2009 /

Today was another study day – studying trees and trying to work out how to paint trees so that they look natural but painterly.I am struggling with trees. I’m not sure what the answer is but I feel it lies in brushwork and controlling the paint. The learning process goes on. This morning the sun…

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Chiquitas Cosiendo

By Anita Murphy / January 9, 2009 /

10″ x 10″, oil on canvas I took the reference photo for this painting at Valle de Bravo in Mexico after we had been to see the Monarch butterfly migration (Unbelievable sight!). These two young girls were dressed in traditional dresses and sitting in the dappled shade of the trees, embroidering. I have to admit…

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York

By Anita Murphy / January 4, 2009 /

Today just a sketch – from York. My father was a champion clay pigeon shooter – he won competitions the world over. He had a theory that anyone could hit the first clay – the action was instinctive. He said that after that it would all fall apart because you would try to think about…

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Sketchbook

By Anita Murphy / December 22, 2008 /

From my sketchbook. Not enough time for anything else today – up to my ears in Christmas cookies. Why do I let myself get distracted with things like that? And tomorrow I wont be home until later as there is a Christmas get together that I could really do without. But then FREEDOM and 11…

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Unwrapped

By Anita Murphy / December 8, 2008 /

Working with blue underpainting proved more difficult than the magenta did. Very hard to get cleaner colours for the icing. The extemely subtle colour changes in the cupcake case were very hard to do and not revert to using tiddly brushes. I’m trying to get myself to do more sketching so this is todays –…

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