Day 933 Urban Sketching

February 7, 2017February 7, 2017Leave a comment

Went sketching downtown with my sweet friend AC Daniel. We ended up at the Soy Noodle house eating. Gotta keep your strength up. So far this is my fav sketch done that day. It looks terrible after I painted it but turned it into a journal page with the lettering.

Stillman and Birn Zeta Pentel Brush Pen and Lamy EF. My whisky painter travel palette and waterbrushes.

Wish I had taken a photo of it before the lettering. The brown was just dullllll.

Pleased to announce Augusta is having its first Urban Sketchers meeting. Hopefully Sunday February 12 at Earthfare Meeting Room at 1 pm. Click on the link to join our facebook page, to keep up to date, and to see our art!!! Lots of sketching will be going on.
Ttyl

Margaret xoxoxo who had to work on her sketchbookskool homework.

Day 932 – Al Beyer

February 6, 2017February 7, 2017Leave a comment

I drew this during art history lecture last Wednesday. Not meant to look like him exactly just the essence and to take notes on the lecture about how to compose a painting and be sure you get all the parts in perspective. When people are added the heads have to line up on your sight line or they will appear to float. Check out John Salimen, another great art teacher. He’s a master at composing from photos with many national and international art awards. His new coffee table book is just gorgeous.

His DVD on urban landscapes explains how to compose a picture from several photos.

Painted with my tiny whiskey painter palette loaded with Windsor newton travel Paullette colors. Refilled with Daniel Smith using the same colors plus DS quin coral.

A bientot Happy Mondayoff to class I go.

Margaret xoxox

Day 931 Panera on a Sunday

February 5, 2017Leave a comment

The Panera on Robert C Daniel Parkway was jam packed last week. It was much multiracial than the Evans Panera is.

This is the first sketch I did there. Not perfect but hey it gets you out of the house.

This one was better. I just dropped people in as they wandered by. Lettering could be a little darker.

Ted Nuttalls transparent watercolor palette. Lamy Safari Stillman and Birn Zeta.

Time to go do some urban sketching.

Xoxoxo Margaret

Day 930 – Saturdays in Aiken

February 4, 2017February 4, 2017Leave a comment

Maggie’s Van Gogh aka Ilaina. 24×30″ acrylic

Sorry for no progress photos. I left my phone in the car lost under the seat!! Thank goodness Rachel found it for me. Cars do eat telephones.

She came together really fast. By first break Ilaina was mostly done. So I decided to paint the background to fill up it most especially the chair. I had a lot of green paint on my brush left over from the drape and decided to put it on the chair. LOVED The look. Added some thalo blue for shadows using a huge 14 bristle filbert. I decided to spread the thalo around with dabs on the figure.

And then I painted the rest of the background. Nothing too focused. Just colors.

Colors used cobalt and thalo blue, pyrrole red, nickel azo gold, titanium white, Winsor violet, primary yellow, Indian yellow

Love the peachy tones in Drew Murphys soft painting

Al Beyer’s oil. He was in an odd spot behind the chair which made her head quite tiny.

Lady who painted next to me.

Tom Needham’s small watercolor.

Dawns large oil. And that’s all I had time to take pics of

Progress on Looking Down -Ponce City Market.

My friend Drew Murphys awesome elephant painting.

Here it is earlier last week. Ruth and I told him to take the buckets out. Like it better without.

Ttyl off to run errands.

Margaret xoxox

Day 928 Getting Squirrely

February 2, 2017Leave a comment

The back porch squirrels and their antics are always fun to sketch. A ready model. Cheap. Will work for bird seed anywhere anytime anyplace. And of course I like to imagine what they are thinking as they gobble. Really need to name them Oreck and Dyson or Hoover. Miele?!

Drawn with a Lamy Safari in a Stillman and Birn Zeta mixed media.

Colors. Background Quinn gold squirrels cerulean Piemonte ultramarine. Splattered with Quin sienna or burnt orange.

Have a go at the squirrels. The back porch birds are fun to draw too. Use some gestures. It doesn’t have to look just like a particular squirrel it just had to look like a squirrel – the way they hold their food and hunch up over thier paws or spread their tails. Fun stuff.

Ttyl

Margaret off to look downtown and see what there is to sketch in this 72 degree day of sunshine. Xoxoxo

Day 926 – Ponce City Market-Day 3

January 31, 2017January 31, 2017Leave a comment

Working little is Looking Down

This is day three working on this huge acrylic. Well huge for a very short person. Lol. It’s 3’x4′.

Sorry the picture is not better.

Bytw the photo I am using to paint from was taken from the second floor of Ponce City Market looking down on the restaurant tables below. The ceilings are very high so it’s like it was take from the third story.

The day I took photos the man on the right was everywhere. Always in the background cleaning. Always working silently in the background.

This is what it looked like yesterday when I worked on it. Still a lot to do. I don’t have the picture of the sketch because I started painting it as I was sketching it.

The sketch lines were becoming jumbled and confused so I started blocking in the colors so I could see what I was drawing. What was right and what was wrong.

Colors used. The undercoating is Nickel Azo gold. Other colors pyrrole red, Winsor purple, thalo blue, black, burnt umber, titanium white. Also

Using up lots of tail ends of tubes before they dry out like yellow ochre.

Ttyl gym time.

Margaret tearing herself away from the tv. Xoxoxox

#poncecitymarket

Day 925 the rest of the pile

January 30, 2017Leave a comment

Notice how this painting started as a gesture sketch after I measured.

So did this one. In Two minutes gesture is about all you can do.

Day 920 -Charlie Rose Asks the Hard Questions

January 25, 2017Leave a comment

My favorite. Today’s Sketchbookskool homework was to draw four freeze frame views of the human head. I took these off air this morning on CBS This Morning by pausing the tv.

I think I should have sharpened my pencil more. I think they look a little over worked because of the dull pencil. If I knew where my mechanical pencils were I could use them. Lost somewhere in this house.

My Cheap Joes #2 did a great job but like all #2s it quickly dulls. Hey but it’s a free pencil that you get with your Cheap Joes orders.

My second favorite. A yarn bomber crocheted him a pair of size 13 sneakers. Charlie likes his feet to be comfy and ALWAYS wears a pair of sneakers.

First attempt. I think he looks tired.

We were suppose to draw a profile. Most commentators are rarely in profile so not a great reference photo. Had to get done because tonite Dr Sketchys. More drawings to come hopefully. Our model is one of the Saturday models. The lovely Ilaina. Hurrah.

Bientôt. Off to school.

Margaret having a very busy three days. Xoxoxo

#CharlieRose #Cbsthismorning #tv

Day 917 Urban Sketching the Woman’s March

January 22, 2017Leave a comment

Despite the deluges yesterday a large crowd turned out. It was a rainbow kind of crowd – old and young, men and women, LGBT and even a few dogs.

I drew these yesterday on a very wet day in downtown Augusta. The March and the speeches were at historic Springfield Park where Morehouse College started at Springfield Baptist across the street.

The flame like sculpture on the rampart is all a part of the park. I did paint these at home. I didn’t think watercolor would work too well in deluge weather. Besides there was nowhere to put anything down because it POURED all morning too.

A second even faster sketch of the happy crowd of raincoats and galoshes. I think the correct number of marches was actually 671 but the speakers said 370 and 20 countries.

The sketches were done in my Stillman and Birn Zeta mixed Media with my very patriotic Red Noodler Konrad. I added the flags and the signs to give more interest to the sketches.

Notice the big raindrop blotches on the ink?! Oops. Bravely I kept on sketching standing on top of a bench for a better view.

Here’s the first sketch and a picture of the crowd and park. The local news reported 600 people were there. I think there were closer to 1000. Guess it’s impossible to count.

Somebody asked me how I drew these. The only thing I can say is start at the front and fill in the crowd moving back or you won’t have room for the people in the foreground.

You can not draw a counter in a restaurant and then add people. You have to do it people first then the counter or pencil in the counter which I rarely do. Sometimes it gets me into trouble when I forget the order :

People first background last!

Happy sketching.

Margaret madly painting black edges on canvases for her show at 4p in February. Xoxoxo and yes it’s still raining.

Day 916 skies

January 21, 2017Leave a comment

When you live on a river you see a lot skies. Sunrises sunsets and

wild storms blowing in from the west across Georgia and the Savannah River.

Because it was a stormy sky I used a lot of marks to make it hopefully seem stormier.

These are done with Prismacolor art sticks and colored pencils in my Stillman and Birn Zeta Mixed Media Journal. Lines and lettering with the Lamy Safari I think or the EF.

Ttyl Margaret xoxox