I really needed sunglasses driving around at the cabin at Sweetwater Flyfiahing Camp and Brevard, Sapphire and Cashiers this weekend. The leaves were in peak color. Glorious technicolor. 

Color along the Thomson River. 

Sweetwater Flyfishing Camp where the leaves were raining down in drifts of gold. 
Just because I like  it.

Nite. 

Margaret xoxox

The last two posts went on the wrong site. No idea how or why that happens. 

Most of these are done with pentel black and sepia pigment pens that love being washed out with a water brush. And Tombows. 

Contest Jessicas worst nightmare. Finally a half way decent one. This won second place. First place was a free dr Sketchys. Darn. A prize I would have liked. 

 Contest What did Jessica do the Black Cat?! I guess the picture tells the story

This is the best one I did all evening I think. . I actually think this one is my favorite now. It was a beautiful pose though her left arm did collapse some as the pose went on. 

I drew the legs to short on this one and lengthened them. That’s what the brown mess on the right is. But not so bad. Not like most if yesterday’s. 
Thanks for checking by. 
happy Halloween. 
Margaret xoxoxo

As usual lots of fun but I could not draw to save my life for a while until I drew this one. I had to change pens. My beloved Kuretake pen let me down. This is drawn with a carbon pen and some pentel brush pens. Sepia and Black. 

How many bad drawings could I do. Let me count. One
 One.   What’s with her hand?! Eeek!! 

You never know when or even why that happens. I guess it keeps you humble.

Halloween creepy stuff I was so bad. Miniature legs. And that hand. Let’s start over again. 

Two.  A quick sketch. But still a little off

 Three.let’s start over again?! 

Four enough said. Five and I put her eyes WAY to high. Dixie is a pretty girl. 

Six. FInally a bit better but what a jaw?! This was a contest. Our model has a tree tattooed on her leg and we had to add it to our sketches. I ditched the brush pen after this one. 

Better ones tomorrow. I promise. Yes they did get better.  
Margaret xoxox

At Chat Noir 7pm at eight and Ellis in downtown Augusta. Come join the fun and games and outrageous models. Last months model Jessica was super. She held rock solid poses.

My five minute sketches were great. 

And so were my two minute ones. 

Five minutes

Two minutes 

Mary Poppins came for a visit. 

The month before we had a mermaid. No telling what we will have for Halloween. A ghoul? A witch?!

Whoever it is I bet it won’t be Mary. 

Winsor Newton markers and tombows w a pentel brush pen in a 10×14 superaquabee tablet. 

See ya tonite. 

Margaret xoxoxo

The pen I used on this page was not one of my normal ones. THE INK LEAKED WHEN I TRIED TO PAINT THE PACE. EEEKKK. 

So I painted almost all the letters grey with water. All but the numbers which is why they are dark red. When the numbers did ok I decided to go back over the grey ines with the same red marker. 

Not bad but I will not be using that pen again unless I want the ink to run. Here’s a picture of the offending pen.  

I tried to go with the Bleedy color. It occasionally  got me into trouble as I colored and painted. I used a pile of Kleenex blotting the ink as it ran. 
I used tombow markers and a couple of caran d’ache neocolor ii crayons on this. Strathmore 500 mixed media journal a lovely crispy paper. Highly recommend this one or stillman and birns series. Great sketchbooks for watermedia. 

Ttyl 

Margaret off to the y for yoga!!😳xoxox

Sorry that its a little late today…the day got away from me!!

My finished painting today.  Ilania Acrylic 24×28.  I painted this in about an hour.  I used large one inch brushes on most of her.

This painting is alla prima which means that the brush strokes were laid down in one stroke after I drew her.

Here she is at the second break. I had only worked on her MAYBE forty minutes at the time.  I drew an ink sketch first and forgot to take a photo of it…
Really pleased with the way she turned out! A definite keeper!!

Cathe Dennis 24×30 acrylic Always like the sketchiness of her work and the brush strokes.  As Drew Murphy who was off hunting likes to say the one thing we can do that a photo or the computer cant is brush strokes.

Al Beyers HUGE oil.  This one is about 4 feet long and two or two and a half feet wide.  Alot of ground to cover in an hour and half of painting.

 

Marilyn Hartleys beautiful painting.  I think shes acrylic. Its quite large close to 24×30″  Always love her work.  Very sketchy thin paint.

Alex who hides in the corner and ERASES these every week…I am going to buy some canson to give him and trade him for some of these lovely conte sketches. Big full sheet of canson mi Teinte

Lee’s Conte crayon.  He does alot of vigorous sketching with slashing strokes.  I finished early and was watching him draw.  Quite interesting.

 

Coach’s athletic Ilaina. She is definitely athletic but not quite this monumental.

Rachel Miller continues to impress me…she started sketching a year ago and watercolor only a month ago!! OH MY…she has talent!!

Alexis is another newbee and shes coming along!! The more I look at this one the more I like it.

Its Saturday time to watch Father Brown on PBS.

TTYL

Margaret xoxox

 

 

I started a new very large 36×48 acrylic working from a picture I took in Brevard a few weeks ago.

Heres the original photo.

 

Then it was cropped and lightened in iphoto on my ipad to see the details better…like the lady behind her husband. In the original she disappears!!

Usually I loathe transferring the picture to the painting but this was SOOO easy all due to having bought a John Salimen about urban landscapes. This dvd is worth every penny I paid for it and it was NOT cheap but hes so informative and easy to understand. Also covers perspective John’s way.

This is how to make really cool enlarging tools that will get you done in no time flat. NO MATH INVOLVED!!

Print your photo out. ( I will post a pic of the printout tomorrow.  I forgot to take one!! )

Fold it into sixteenths. I like to add lines to the sections so I can see them better.

And divide your canvas or paper that you are transferring the image to into 16 sections. You can see the marks along the edge of the canvas.

 

The vertical tool.  

Use an old piece of matboard or cardboard.  Cut a trapezoid that has the measurements of your printout on one end and the painting on the other end.

So how do you know what they are??

The short side matches ONE block of the print out.  It is the same height  as the block on the print out – 1 1/2″.

The left side matches the same size vertical block on the painting which was 12 inches.

Add hash marks on each edge dividing into half, fourths and eigths.

 The horizontal tool.

It matches the horizontal line on the printout on the small end and the painting on the long edge which is 9″.

 

Using the vertical tool, measure your printout on the short side of the tool.

Do you see that his nose hits at the fifth hashmark and his chin at the sixth one?? His hat hits just above the fourth one.

DO ONE MEASUREMENT AT A TIME or you will become confused.

Flip your tool to the large end and mark the same hash marks for the nose and chin on the canvas.  You will have your photo transferred in no time and it will be accurate!!

 

A commission that I have been given that I started today…having nothing better to do.  10×15 watercolor

TTYL

Margaret who is off to Columbia (SC not the country) for the day!! xoxoxo