Category: art journal

Day 330 – urban sketching?

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is sketching a friend at breakfast at a local restaurant considered urban sketching?! 

 

  Lowered the left eyebrow. It was too high. Still a bit too high but better. 

Doesn’t look a bit like Marsha. She kept moving. So I am blaming her for the poor likeness.  

I did have a good time dripping and splattering the painting and that’s what counts right?! 

   

Really like the hair.  It was washed with burnt sienna and the darkened with tiny bits of cobalt, burnt umber, mineral Violet and Inathridone blue after the initial wash dried. Fun stuff. 

 Colors used: Quin coral and ochre for skin, vermilion, mineral purple and cobalt,  Inathridone blue for blouse,  mineral purple and burnt sienna for shadows. Hair is burnt sienna, cobalt, burnt umber and Inathridone blue. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 329 – Urban Sketching 

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in Columbia at Nonnahs on Gervais. 

  
The view of the restaurant from our table. Delicious awesome from scratch biscuits made with the famous SC flour Adluh and great chicken salad on a bed of mixed greens with artichoke hearts and lots of iced tea.  Deliciousness.  

I had hoped some more victims I mean patrons would come in but all there were walked by on the sidewalk after I drew the buildings. OPPS! 

Noodler Konrad with Lexington Grey ink and Caran d’ache.  

The zigzags of color are applied after the base color dries.  I think it gives a little Zing to the sketch. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 328 – Quick Dog Sketches

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The Watch Dogs aka Pits on guard

Happy June!!  Can hardly believe it’s amer again! 

After one false start this one went very well. The two dogs were guarding the house while strangers were getting giveaways on Craigslist  off the porch. 

They will sit still barking their heads off for what seems like hours.  This sketch took at most ten minutes and perhaps ten to color it.  Quick and dirty.  It was done with my Noodler creaper Ahab loaded with carbon platinum plus. The ink should not have run. Maybe I will make this mixed media when I get home by adding a piece of ledger paper over the lettering on the right. 

Tips aka How I did it. Colored with Caran d’ache watercolor crayons wet with a waterbrush.  The brindle pitty was a problem as usual with his tiger striped coat. I started with the same colors as the fawn pit bull Livia. Then I added black to Bear. I wet it down hitting it here and there with the waterbrush. If I had brushed the water on it it would have blurred the colors. 

The blinds were done by coloring with  a burnt umber crayon and washing the blinds with it. Then letting the wash dry and drawing new lines on the blinds with the  burnt umber crayon. 

I had thought about getting my fine mister out and spraying it allowing the colors to run.  Glad I didn’t. I really do like this sketch. The mister spray effect is totally unpredictable. 

  

This is the first attempt at drawing them. A contour sketch that didn’t have room for all of Bear the pit on the left or all of Livias tail or the chair. Sometimes it’s just easier to start over. 

Thanks for reading!!

Margaret xxx

Day 327 – a few more planes 

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  If it was hard drawing a plane with one wing a biplane doubles the opportunities to screw up. Oh my gosh. Hard to draw. I actually lost a propellor. And all kinds of struts and ties. I think they are there now. I hope. Hate for it to fly apart. 

My grandson Henry loved this little yellow plane. He has watched the short video of it  at least 20 times. He wanted me to draw it for him. So we did.

First problem. Do not paint with a two year old and not expect ho to add his favorite color red to a yellow planes wing. Oops.  I drew another one do him to paint and he was happy. 

 Then the yellows were a problem. Cad yellow was not Orange enough. I finally used a dab of Indian yellow gouache.  I have a white marker that I used to add the reflection on the bottom of the wing and some of the wires. Why was there a reflection there?! No idea. 

Last problem. No idea what kind of biplane this cutey is. 

  
Here are Henrys paintings with a little help from his gramy. The yellow plane was painted with my Winsor Newton and Daniel Smith watercolors. The one on the right was painted with his Watercolors. I never could get a dark black to draw the plane. So the next time you want to save a little money and buy student grade paints don’t.  What if your grandson I mean you paint a masterpiece with the cheap paint?! It won’t last forever. That would be sad. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret XXX

Day 326 Flying High

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Went out to lunch yesterday with my sister in law Jan at the Peachtree DeKalb Airport where they were preparing for their Spring Open House. We watched the planes come

And go during lunch. Then I decided to draw a few.  All their antique WW2 planes lined up asking to be drawn. 

These were drawn on site with a Noodler Creaper Ahab in my Stillman and Birt Alpha painted with watercolor and touches of white get pen. 


The Grumann Avenger Torpedo Bomber was the first one I drew. A nice Navy blue. How could u resist it shining in the sun, saying draw me?! 

Sometimes crosshatching the background fixes mistakes but NOT this one. I think A bad line would have been better. Planes are hard to draw because there are so many angles going every which way. Typical perspective rules apply but don’t seem too. Easy to get off track. 

I tried to stay on track by looking at the angles of the real wings compared with the angles I drew on the page starting with the fusillade then adding wings and tails. As it is I forgot to add the tail gun. So many small details it’s easy to miss a few. 

When I got home I looked up the plants to try to figure out which ones they were. The Grumann Avenger was the plane Pres George Bush flew in WW2. 

The navy blue is a mix of ultramarine and black a color I rarely use. It was hard to get a deep deep blue without the black. 

 
Next was the infamous WW 2 Mitsubishi Zero famed for dogfights in and kamikaze missions in the Pacofoc campaign. We thought surely it was not a zero but it had that big red circle on it. We knew what that meant. I looked it up and yes it was. This was fairly easy to draw. Profile views are easter even in a plane. Even the military green was easy. A bright green mixed with yellow ochre. Piece of cake.   Success at last. I added a touch of Quin burnt sienna to the cad red of the circle. 

  
Not sure what kind of plane this is. A WW2 Army Spotter plane I was told. Of course now the tail says USAF. Hmm I noticed that as I was drawing. 

I used the same greens on this plane as the zero. The gold is Quin gold. Yellow ochre was just being when I tried it. Grey is ultramarine and Quin burnt sienna. 

More planes tomorrow and a comparison of paint. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret XXX

Day 325 – Dog Days

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dog sitting my sons pit bulls. 

  
Bear is always a challenge to paint with his brindle fur. First he was painted with a mix of Quin gold and Quin burnt sienna. Then I daubed in burnt umber and ultramarine for the blackish brindle in his fur. I also added the shadow under him when the fur was still wet. And that’s all I did. It was all wet on wet except the dab of muddy Quin red in his ears. 

  
Livia is always interesting to draw with her curves. And fairly easy to paint. A wash of Quin gold, burnt umber shadows and burnt umber and ultramarine to make a black for her muzzle. 

Thanks for reading.  

Margaret XXX

Day 324 Dr Sketchys Part two

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 Ten minute pose. This one is going to be used on social media to advertise the Sweeney Todd show at Chat Noir this weekend. Wish I could be there to see it but in Atlanta dogsitting. The red is a wink of Stella brush pen. All red glitter. Makes him look even more gruesome. 

The sketching went much better but I do wish I had used my Noodler Creaper Ahab for some of these. Instead I used the Pentel Brush Pen, Tombow Markers, Pentel color brush pens, and Wink of Stella brush pens for some glittery sparkle. both the Tombows and the Colorbrush pens are water soluble and fun to use with a water brush. 

  
This was a ten minute pose. We were supposed to make a poster of him so I turned him into a pirate because I messed up his left eye. Perfect place for a patch. Problem solved. Most of the coloring was done with the Tombows. There was a prize of two free tickets to Sweeney Todd but since I wasn’t going to be there I didn’t enter. 

  
Mickeys a great singer so we drew him as he played the guitar and sang. Tombows and Pentel color brush.  10 minute pose. The challenge of this was drawing his moving arm as he played. 

  
15 minute pose. His leg is too short. Oopsey. It was hard to see in the dark theater. And as I was sitting in front of him I had to peek over the sketch book to see his lower half. Or at least that’s what I am blaming this on. Lol. Couldn’t be me!! 

  
Not quite a disaster but almost.  Had her body too long and her legs too short.  

 

Then I shut the book before the black wink of Stella I did the lettering with was dry and it glued the pages together. Poop! 

The grey on her legs is where I shortened her body. I used gouache to try to straighten up the stray pen marks and the grey on her legs. For some

Reason my flesh Tombow kept lifting the Pentel brush pen. I don’t remember it doing that before. 

At any rate I added the gouache and the black Tombow this morning. 

  
Sometimes a good crop can improve the look of a sketch. Lol. 
Thanks for looking. 

Margaret xxx

Day 323 Dr Sketchys Part 1

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Great nite!  Mickey Lay was a great model!  Always our favorite sketching activity. It’s worldwide so see if there’s one near you. 

  2 Minute pose Head is a little small Done w brush pen in a strathmore mixed media sketchbook. I have one just for Dr Sketchys. Thank goodness the drawing went better than the ones I did at Good Books. Perhaps those earlier drawings loosened me up?!

We started with several two minutes poses.  

 The poses were very interesting. He did a lot of muscle poses. Seemed to have trouble getting the whole body on the paper. 

  
Another two minute muscle pose

  
The first five minute pose. Hard to hold the spear up in the air for 5 minutes but Mickey did well. Hard pose to hold. 
 
Two five minute costume poses.  Finally managed to get his legs on the page.  Hallelujah. These were embellished with Pentel brush markers and Tombow markers. The Tombows cover a lot of area quickly and are fun to wet down with a water brush giving a watercolor effect. 

Thanks for reading. More dr Sketchys tomorrow!! 

Margaret xxx

Day 322 – Good Books

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shopping for Franklin and Froggy books at our Gucci Goodwill. Found a stack. Sat down to draw the customers in the Good Eats Cafe there. 

Some days you can’t draw at all. Viewing it as a warm up for Dr Sketchys tonite. Hope I do better then. 

These are the best of the trash that I drew. Could not get in the rhythm today. 

  
I brought in a sketchbook with only two pages left DUH! So I drew over some screwed up pages of Rhineharts Oyster Bar. 

  
Browsers and worker bees at Good Books. 

  
Rhineharts roof. Guess I could have drawn on the napkins!?  

Sorry about the quality of the photos. Weird shadows from the lights in Good Books. 

Maybe color would improve these?! Or a brush pen!?

Thanks for reading.  

Margaret XXX

Day 320 – only 45 days til it’s a YeAr!!

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Oh my the goal is getting so close. I will be in Key West I think then so look south for skyrockets. Lol. The year long odyssey can almost see the finish line. 

  
What’s for dinner? Caran d’ache, brush pen  8.5 x 11″ 
Memorial Day a day for families getting together to eat. So I drew my dinner yesterday.  Haven’t done that in a month. 

  The first time I thought it was finished.  Scribbling red and orange around the border to frame it. Also scribbling random colors on the various objects like the knife. 

A fast fun sketch with caran d’ache in my sketchbook. They are a lot of fun. You can use them as crayons or you can hit them with a waterbrush and turn them into watercolor.  They are a touch opaque if you color too heavily. Also great fun to spray with a fine mist and let them drip drip drip.  All those juicy colors sliding down the paper and mingling into mini rainbows. Really a must try. 
  
 

Adding some  finishing touches with my Pentel brush pen  or so I thought. The crayons always lighten the brush pen so a lot of times I go back over it when I am done with the caran d’ache.  

So treat yourself to a pack of Neocolor ii Caran d’ache crayons. You can get as few as ten though I think 30 or so is better.  More is always better right?!! 

Thanks for reading!!! 

Margaret💋