Sketchbookskool drawing party

Yesterday You try drawing with your none dominant and see how well yours turn out. But a lot of fun. I switched from a fine Pitt pen to the brush pen. You also do it as a contour aka look at your hand while you draw. All things considered these turned out well.

Today A thick and a thin line. Used a blue pilot pen for the thick line and a micro uniball. Interesting look. Might do another with the brush pen and fine point. Bytw for some reason the pilot and the uniball just smear with an index finger doe interesting shadows in my stillman and birn Alpha- my pandemic sketchbook.

One last page while I was waiting for Danny to start an odd bird I never see. I will look it up when I get over being tired from my 4:3o wake up to get to Publixs by 7 am. Then hauling all the groceries and the endless washing and wiping. Just goes on and on and on.

This downy woodpecker hit my window. Hope it’s ok. Was worried the cat would get him. He’s just gorgeous.

Speaking of cats. Buying this from Juliana Coles. Soooo excited. Love her art work and her Pirate art.

One last note cause my youngest bossy son said to do this:

My son who hates forwarded emails said this was one of the most useful

Things he had seen about the virus and that I should post it to Facebook so here it is!

From a former Respiratory therapist: save this treatment plan just in case-excellent!

CORONA Common Sense

Since they are calling on Respiratory therapist to help fight the Corona virus, and I am a retired one, too old to work in a hospital setting. I’m gonna share some common sense wisdom with those that have the virus and trying to stay home. If my advice is followed as given you will improve your chances of not ending up in the hospital on a ventilator. This applies to the otherwise generally healthy population, so use discretion.

1. Only high temperatures kill a virus, so let your fever run high. Tylenol, Advil. Motrin, Ibuprofen etc. will bring your fever down allowing the virus to live longer. They are saying that ibuprophen, advil etc will actually exacerbate the virus. Use common sense and don’t let fever go over 103 or 104 if you got the guts. If it gets higher than that take your tylenol, not ibuprophen or advil to keep it regulated. It helps to keep house warm and cover up with blankets so body does not have to work so hard to generate the heat. It usually takes about 3 days of this to break the fever.

2. The body is going to dehydrate with the elevated temperature so you must rehydrate yourself regulaly, whether you like it or not. Gatorade with real sugar, or pedialyte with real sugar for kids, works well. Why the sugar? Sugar will give your body back the energy it is using up to create the fever. The electrolytes and fluid you are losing will also be replenished by the Gatorade. If you don’t do this and end up in the hospital they will start an IV and give you D5W (sugar water) and Normal Saline to replenish electrolytes. Gatorade is much cheaper, pain free, and comes in an assortment of flavors

3. You must keep your lungs moist. Best done by taking long steamy showers on a regular basis, if your wheezing or congested use a real minty toothpaste and brush your teeth while taking the steamy shower and deep breath through your mouth. This will provide some bronchial dialation and help loosen the phlegm. Force your self to cough into a wet wash cloth pressed firmly over your mouth and nose, which will cause greater pressure in your lungs forcing them to expand more and break loose more of the congestion.

4. Eat healthy and regularly. Gotta keep your strength up.

5. Once the fever breaks, start moving around to get the body back in shape and blood circulating.

6. Deep breath on a regular basis, even when it hurts. If you don’t it becomes easy to develope pneumonia. Pursed lip breathing really helps. That’s breathing in deep and slow then exhaling through tight lips as if your blowing out a candle, blow until you have completely emptied your lungs and you will be able to breath in an even deeper breath. This helps keep lungs expanded as well as increase your oxygen level.

7. Remember that every medication you take is merely relieving the symptoms, not making you well.

8. If your still dying go to ER.

I’ve been doing these things for myself and my family for over 40 years and kept them out of the hospital, all are healthy and still living today.

Thank you all for sharing. We gotta help one another.”

All This Sounds logical to me. One of my favorite things to do when I get congested is steam my few brains out over a very steamy dishwasher on the rinse cycle with a beach towel over my head and the gap in the door. ALWAYS clears my chest up.

Hugs Margaret who may have a date with her dishwashers drying cycle. Slight case of asthma today. Xoxoxo Stay Safe!!

Face masks and other things!! Aka BUSY!!

From last weeks urban car sketching.

Spent yesterday starting to make masks because if they work for medical people they will protect the ones I love from the virus too.

Don’t believe for a minute you don’t need one when You go out.

Here’s the article!!

I am ripping up filtrete filters with merv 1900 -2200 rating which is really good for masks but u can also use hepa vacuum filters. Just try not to puncture them.

Other fabrics you can use for filters.

You can use duct tape and staples scotch tape masking tape to make the folded accordion style masks. And add ribbons or scraps of fabric for ties. Get creative. Masks patterns are all over the internet.

And no elastic!? Cut strips across your T-shirt’s width about an inch wide. Pull on each end of them. You get spaghetti t-shirt strips perfect for ties.

I made this large pile of ties in minutes. Hmm leftovers. I could tie tomato plants up with them. If I had tomato plants. 🤣😂

So get busy. Some glitter might be a good finish!!Two face masks for my son with bad asthma. Taken two days of ripping and cutting. One day of washing drying fabric. Omg! And I have 53 to make. 😖😖😖

Stay well!! Love you guys!

Margaret who will post art later today after I get the bread out of the oven.

Car Sketching Again!!

Hoping you and yours are doing well. So far so good with all of mine. So here we will sit six feet apart for another month. It’s worth it if it saves even one life.

Never pays to grab a random black sketchbook without looking to see if it’s the right one. This one wasn’t. NOT fond of watercolor. And don’t make a mistake – it’s NOT coming off. No blotting lifting will do. Paper so thin it waffled badly.

This is the kind of sketchbook it is. Ink was fine but watercolor not so much. A birthday present supposedly ok for watercolor. How I mistook it for my black stillman and birn Alpha I will never know. The Alpha is covered with stickers. They look nothing alike.

Spent the day ripping apart filters to make facemasks only to find that I should have gotten the kind in the photo above. Ripping off all those gold plastic wires was tough on my hands. Six done. Still ok for masks but the one in the photo has about 6 times as much fabric. Will use it for my next go round because these will only make 25 or so.

And then there was the baking. Snickerdoodles yummm so crispy and buttery.

And easy no knead bread heading for the oven in an hour. Can’t wait. Usually it takes 18 hours on the counter but not this method.

Not much to see outside this morning. I was hoping doe a pretty sunrise instead it’s been overcast. Hmmm.

And that’s it from the river where the sun will set soon. Hmm still won’t be able to see it. First world problems right?! Xoxoxox

Margaret

Drawing with Danny

Draw small squares all over your pages and then draw parts of items you can see. Can anyone find Zoe. She’s one of these.

It was actually quite interesting. Glad I had the big shelf across the end wall in my eye sight.

It took about 45 minutes to draw all these. And no Zoe is not on the second set. Next time will make it neater like the first set.

You freehand all those squares. One more behind. Draw a face with France Van Something.

Can you see the kayakers!?

They start at noon every week day. If u are on time it’s fun to comment with the other participants and Danny will answer as will Koosje at nine in sketchbookskool YouTube. If u missed one like I did they are still there. Just scroll thru The first five nothing minutes.

Here they are. One group slowly rowing upstream. The other hardly rowing racing south on the river towards the Atlantic. Well in 130 mules or so and a few dams.

A Charles Reid painting of Belize. Isn’t it awesome? And that palm!!! 🌞🌞🌞 Well what can I say?? The king of the splatter. Probably done in two hours or less. 🤔😳😳😳It’s for sale. Lovely painting.

Lamy Ef Brown Noodlers Ink and Micro Uniball Black Watercolor pencil Stillman and Birn Alpha. Brand new one. Hurrah.

Stay well. Hugs. Margaret xoxo

It’s passed

Watercolor pencils, Stillman and Birn Alpha, Lamy Safari, Noodlers Eelskin Ink

More tv sketching. Always a good excuse to watch tv or a movie. The sketchbook is really getting full of these aka watching too much news.

I drew Nancy yesterday while I listened to her talk about the 2 trillion dollar bill passing Congress. 

Cad red light and a dark flesh colored pencil starts her off w cocoa brown shadows, hair. Alizarin and cad red light lips.

Adding flesh colors. And what’s with her fat face. Sigh. Gotta thin it down.

Thank goodness the bill is done. I hope it provides needed relief for everyone.

Thinned her face down QUITE a bit!

Maybe draw the Pope next. I do love that man.

Our my kitchen window this am. Spring is here. Check the pollen out on the deck floor. 😖

A quick sketch on an envelope I mailed to Augusta’s local hero Leonard Porkchop Zimmerman who donates stacks of his happy stickers and sometimes buttons to the world at makemehappy.com

I make him cookies – quite the sweet tooth our Porkchop has.

Margaret ready to put on her jammies. Xoxoxo Stay safe!!

Winging his way

Her way to cheer someone up. I started her with watercolor pencils but shifted to regular watercolor. Pen is sepia Pitt pen on 140 Fluid cold press paper.

Colors used yellow ochre Burnt sienna burnt umber ultramarine.

Margaret ready to put on her jammies and warm up at her house. Xoxoxo

Online art fun

First up was Draw your feet with sketchbook skool this morning. They are streaming draw along videos every day at 9 and 12 on their YouTube channel.
Pentel brushpen Stillman and Birn Zeta
Use three colored pencils today with Danny Gregory who does the 12 noon show. He also has a list of drawings prompts which originated on his Everyday Matters Yahoo list.

Drawn with three colored pencils
Pentel brushpen Stillman and Birn Zeta

Last but not least I drew my dog Zoe after watching Streamline Art Videos on Facebook. Yesterday they had Johanne Mangi. Her dog paintings are marvelous. Wouldn’t mind taking a class from her but they are trying to sell their videos which are pricey. $127 for Johannes. I am sure it’s wonderful BUT I have one of their videos – did I say packed with info but put me to sleep. Seriously I took a good nap watching mine.

Moving on discovered a New Zealander today – a wonderful portrait painter Andrew Tischler. If you don’t watch anything else watch his video about painting his grandfather Harry. Marvelous painting. Just a little advertising.

Tim Wilmot does great YouTube videos. There are at least fifty about an hour long. Little or no advertising just glowing little jewels. On this one he even shows how to do a bit of photo editing with your computer. And a delightful british accent. He’s in England- probably the only reason I haven’t taken a class from him.

Anyway big day tomorrow scrubbing the pollen off the back porch but feel sure I will dip into the quick sketchbook skool draw alongs. Always fun. And Danny can be soothing in the face of this calamity.

Hugs. Stay strong. Xoxoxox we have got this. Margaret.

Out my back window today. Gorgeous spring morning.

Another day of drawings

The back porch models posing for me. Sepia fine Pitt pen

I decided to use the pentel brush pen stillman and birn Zeta. Did NOT go as well. My fav is the little bird on left second one down and the big red cardinal. The brush pen can have a mind of its own drawing tiny bird legs beaks and eyes.

I drew the red cardinal with my watercolor pencils. A set of 24 will give u all the colors you need. Xoxoxo

Su nset on the rivah

Margaret busy watching Gov Kemp talk about what’s going on in Ga. be safe. Xoxoxox

Out the Back Window

The view out our backporch. Love that tree. Probably my fav tree. My amaryllis are really white but I thought red so much more attractive.

The backporch crew is gobbling the sunflower seeds wildly. Can u find them in the painting.

Handprint journal – micro uniball pen.

Last nights baking. Oatmeal bread from kingarthur.com. Love my kitchen aide.

A gift for you all. In case u need a mask scientifically tested fabrics to use for one. Please read. It could save your life.

Margaret knitting and listening to GPTV shows. No kiddy shows this week. Hurrah. So far I have learned about the history of discovering the planets, the invention of flying-fascinating, and now Louisa May Alcott bio. Next up Little Women.

Hugs and stay safe!! Xoxoxox

A Hero for Our Times

I drew this while I watched his speech. I find the man so soothing. He explains so well and reassured the public. You really should watch him if you are in a panic.

Filling in the journal page.

Tweaking

He really is quite yellow or olive as to be expected of a man of Mediterranean descent.

Inktense and derwent wc pencils. Stillman and birn Alpha

The beginning.

Augusta now mostly on lock down no bars no restaurants no salons. Just essential services.

Margaret baking cookies next up bread. Xoxoxo #staysafe #cuomoforpresident