Category: art journal

Day 945 Fat Mans!

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A long time Augusta institution. At Christmas everybody went to Fat Mans Forest to oh and ah over the animated Christmas decorations or to find the perfect tree or ornament or ride the Christmas train. Or do all of the above everybody on town went. But the owner Mr Usry died. The kids wanted to sell the land and move it which never happened.  Thus Fatmans Forest passed into history. Fat Mans was also the go to place for Halloween decorations and a house of horrors. 

However the younger Usrys Fat Mans Cafe is still going strong turning out “soul good” food at their Enterprise Mill location. Excellent squash casserole. Vintage Oolie on Broad bought out the costume part of the business. 

I could not resist drawing their catering trucks as the gleamed in the noon day sun after our luncheon Thursday. 

Painted in an S&B alpha with Ted Nuttalls transparent colors. Drawn w a Lamy EF pen with Lexington gray ink. 
Ttyl! Time to Parker vous Francais! 

Margaret xoxoxo

#fatmans #EnterpriseMill

Day 944 Enterprise Mill

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This sketch took the longest of all the sketches I did Thursday. Large double spread in my Stillman and birn alpha. Drawn with my Lamy ef. 

The building is vermilion or scarlet lake mixed with a bit of burnt umber or Piemonte. I also used Piemonte w ultramarine for shadows and windows. Makes a nice purpley blue dark. 


I drew the last old house on Upper Broad Street yesterday. It’s a sad mess. Probably a tear down because nobody wants to live in the middle of a used weedy car lot. 


Windows open rotted away and boarded up. But you can buy a Prius from the front porch!  It must have been quite a house in its younger days 100 years ago. I wonder who lived there. 

These two houses sit to the right across the weedy car lot from the lone house .  

Ted Nuttall’s transparent colors. #2 Richeson squirrel mop brush. 

Ttyl 

Margaret who refuses to catch a cold but has a stuffed up head xoxoxo

#fatmans #EnterpriseMill

Day 943 The Two Dowagers

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Upper Broad Street used to be lined with these late Victorian houses. Now there are only three left. They look tired but not quite derelict. These two stand by themselves like two old ladies. 

The light was great yesterday –  and the houses were bathed in the bright winter sun which lit them like a spot light. 
I added the guy walking by. He’s really just an oval, a rounded triangle for the body, and a couple of strokes for legs and feet. Ditto for the arm. 

I coated the houses w a very light Quin gold. Makes them look sunny I think. 

Colors used-Sky. Hmm peacock blue?! Hookers green and hematite, Quin gold, cerulean, burnt umber and ultramarine, Quin burnt orange, vermilion. 

The trees are done w a watery soup of cerulean and Quin burnt orange to give the effect of bare winter limbs. 

The biggest thing that gives this look is using my small squirrel mop. You cannot get to picky with it. An #8 I think. 

In a Stillman and Birn Alpha w 92 pages which means they are thin. And they are wavy causing puddling.  Not sure I like that but will continue on since it cost a pretty penny $27 from Amazon. Hoping they will flatten out as they dry. 

Drawn w a Lamy EF loaded with permanent Lexington gray ink. 

Ttyl 

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 942 Sacred Heart

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I never get tired of trying to draw it and paint it. My fav building in Augusta. I think I got it this time. 

It’s an old deconsecrated Catholic Church downtown on Greene Street. I used to take Spanish from the nuns in the school to the read of the church as a third and fourth grader. My mom thought it was how we needed to spend our Saturdays. Asks me if I speak Spanish. Nope!! 

Colors used. Piemonite, cerulean, ultramarine blue, Quin burnt orange, burnt umber, Quin gold, vermilion, green appetite, sap green. 

Drawn w my Lamy EF in a stillman and Birn Alpha. Paper will dry flat but it’s a little wavy now. 

More to paint. 

Xoxoxo

Margaret 

Day 941 A few more als and that urban sketch 

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Sketched at the Aiken Brewing Company on Laurens St downtown Aiken 

Colors used Quin gold Quin red orange cerulean, burnt umber, ultramarine, hookers and a gel pen or two. 

Draw with a Lamy Safari and Lexington Grey ink in a Stillman and Birn Zeta. 

Als painting of a student circus 1990. Even then he was trying to paint like Vermeer. 

Als friend from the gym who loved to tell stories. He was a rower in the 52 and 56 Olympics for Hungary. 

Al after his heart attack. He used his computer camera to take this photo. 

The models make Al look like a great painter so he says but we know he’s a great painter. 

Ilaina gorgeous as ever. A Saturday painting. 3×4′

Als office. Always neat. Painted with acrylic. Much wilder than his oil paintings. LOVE This one. Think it got a certificate of merit at the State Fair. 

Als an awesome painter and teacher the reason. I drove 60 miles three times a week to Aiken to become a better painter I HOPE!! 

Xoxoxo

Margaret 

Day 940 – LateNight Entertainment Al Beyer!

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Our beloved prof Al Beyer was the program at the Aiken Art Guild last night and he was his usual humorous self peppering his talk with quip after quip such as “If you get a bad painting it’s your failt but if you get a good one (at lifemodeling) it’s all the model!! And that is true well sometimes. 

This huge seemingly abstract is the way Al works. It will be a photorealistic water landscape painting when he’s done or as he calls it the most boring painting ever since it will be almost all water with his. A bit of tree bank across the top. 

We told him we liked it as it is. An abstract. 

He blocks off the painting into multiple blocks the size of a standard piece of paper. Every nite with a printed paper from his tiled photograph he paints one section in oil with a small brush which takes him about 2-3 hours per square. 

Here he is with his helper Vanna aka Ilaina – one of  our Saturday models. 


Here’s a better picture of this huge painting. It’s made by layering multiple photos of Beijing in Photoshop. Interesting effect. 

Hmm my sketchbook seems to be among the missing. I drew theses ladies yesterday while my excellent steak salad got cold at Aiken Brewing Company on Laurens Street in Aiken. 

Hope I find it. It will be a great painting when I am done. Sigh. 

Ttyl 

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 939 Urban Sketching at Earthfare Cafe 

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Always a good place to draw. Add people as they drift into your picture. Next time we are drawing at Wet Paint party at Sacred Heart an incredible setting Saturday Feb 18 7-10 pm. Trying something new. This is my Woman’s March sketch on a small canvas. What do you think? It’s 14×16. 

This is the original sketch. 

Gotta run. Another busy day. Tomorrow I collapse and go to the Y for yoga. Relaxing. 

Ttyl Margaret xoxoxo

Day 938 Sometimes it doesn’t turn out like u expected  

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so it’s good to have a fall back. 

I have darkened this one down quite a bit. Trying to get the lights to glow.  Still not there. Better than it was. 

Here it was earlier. I drew this last week in downtown. It’s where AC and I ate late lunch. 

Remember this?! Like this one better. Maybe I need to write all over it.  Lol. Still have one more sketch from or Sunday unpainted. 


Off to our first meetup of urbansketchers of Augusta. Hope to see you at the Earthfare meeting room at 1. 

Ttyl 

Margaret xoxoxo whose having a way too busy weekend. 

Day 935 Urban sketching at the Augusta Museum and a cartoon. 

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Sunday was a free day at the local museum. I had not been since it moved to its new building and it’s just remarkable. The Augusta room is so well done. The train that all my kids loved is still there to walk thru but now inside out of the weather. 

This is drawn from a display of the Stallings Island Archaic period.  

As a girl my friends and I volunteered at the museum and worked on the original arrowhead exhibit for the archaic period. We always had fun working after school at the old museum 

I did mean to draw something else on this page but forgot so I filled it in with the notes on the Stallings Islnd culture. OOPPS. The yellow is. YOU guessed it. Quin gold. With cerulean 

There’s an Augusta Trolley car too. AC and I had to check them both out. Very fun. Love be the bright yellow trolley. Going to have to go back when I can stay longer.  

 The 70s exhibit


An old water pumper. I drew it but still have to paint it. Maybe today?!  

My sketchbookskool homework a Day in the Life. Should have done a two page spread because I ran out of room. Oh well it’s done. 

If you want to try this make a list of your days activities OR just make blocks and fill them in. 

Pitt pens pyrrole red Quin gold cerulean hematite green. Stillman and Birn mixed media Zeta. 

Ttyl yoga time soon. 

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 934 Urban sketching and a cartoon 

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I drew this apartment building from the porch of the Partridge Inn last Wednesday. It was bathed in the late afternoon sun. I don’t know if I captured it but it’s my other favorite sketch from yesterday. 

Color Quin cold and Quin coral on the building w a violet in the shadows.  Hematite green bushes w ultramarine blue. Sky cerulean. 

Sketchbookskool homework.  Draw a cartoon. 

This is our beloved art professor Al saying his quips that keep us laffing and coming back for more of his teaching. I am starting year two. Some people in Advanced Painters have been there for twenty years. His New Yorkness is still there all these years later. 

Some more Al-isms. 
Looks like a gorilla painted this. 

Don’t mess it up to fix it. Never happens. 
You owe me some time. 
You need to leave room 140

There’s a world outside room 140

This is not a democracy. 

Steal from the best. 

“These two areas of your painting need to talk to each other”. 

 “Get working. Stop talking”. 

 “Don’t let me paint your painting for you. You decide”. 

  “Seven years he has been here and he has never done anything I’ve asked him to do”. (Like in a way he is sort of proud of the guy for that)

 “So do you think you have another painting in ya?”

 “Work on this for your next 20 paintings”.

Kawfee 
“You got it!” (I.e.do we understand?)

 “You are in danger of finishing this painting”. 

 ” It’s your painting; I don’t want to micromanage it”
“Be thinking about your next painting” ”
“Keep it fresh!

“Don’t get too.close.to me….or might be I don’t want to get too close to anyone, I might be coming down with something.”

“I am very tired.today” ” I have to go crack my back”.

Stop.talking….start painting…….and/or. “Get to work”!😕🎨
Have the same person paint this side.  
Watch those edges. 

Big brush strokes. 

Warms and cools make a happy painting 
Complimentary Pairs. 
Brush strokes 
Same intensity of two complimentaries make them pop. .
Change blue use thalo sometimes. Thick paint makes it closer glazes farther away
Texture brush strokes 

People are stingy about their paint 
A really great painter pays attention to the corners and edges not just the middle.