Category: Art

Day 991 Livie done and a Class Review

Leave a comment

Trying to decide if she’s done. Not sure I like the dark blue side. Maybe too strong?! 

Peggy Habets an awesome painter and loaded with knowledge that she shares. Such a willing and gracious teacher. 

Would I take her class again?! Yes. I have yet to meet a more diligent thoughtful teacher who wants everyone to be their own painter in their own style and NOT just paint like her. And she helps you figure out what that is. She also gives the best bound handout I have ever gotten in a class. Hmm the only hand out I have ever gotten 

Peggi only uses M Graham paints which stay moist forever. A good thing when you are laying in a LOT of colors. 

Raisin and I went to Cheap Joes to get several more tubes of it to augment our palette and a new palette just for the M Graham paint. M Graham is made with blackberry honey as the binder and doesn’t dry on your palette whilst you are using it. 

One of the girls at Cheap Joes said not a good thing when you do Plein Air. The bees love it and swarm to your palette. Eeekk 

The rest of the classes work. 
More soon. There were some absolutely gorgeous watercolors in this class. 
Margaret exhausted. Xoxoxo

Day 988 Wow 13 more days

Leave a comment

Til the big 1000!! 

Since 13 is a mystics number surrounded by bad luck impending done a journal page on palm reading seems like an appropriate post.   The assignement this week was to completely cover a two page spread with masking tape. Then study a palm reading chart and react to that. I am not exactly a girl who believes in palm Reading so this was a little difficult for me. 

I pondered the assignment of reading your palms for 4-5 days. Then I did all these pages in less than an hour.  I was flipping thru the old Bazaar magazine looking for images to collage on another page and found the red headlines. I thought perfect. I glued them on. The grey was a scrap from ripping out collage items for the other page. Perfect color. 


I literally pulled a couple of pieces of somerset collage paper out of this heap and traced my hands and glued them down quickly.  Then I started scribbling with Prismacolor artstiks and gel pens. 

Next I stamped some old Teesha Moore stamps that I had for years and never used. I still had the third page blank. I lettered with the paint pen and drew some arrows. Then it popped into my head to do an X-ray hand for the scar page-write down all your scars-because some scars are visible but some you can only see in an X-ray. Still have to journal those. 

This is a WIP. It will change. I got some transparent purple ink to paint on it just not had time. And I have a list of things to still try out. Here are what I brain stormed. 

Yellow gold aura. Lightening bolts

Light green on x ray hand thalo blue thinned on background

Outline letters in yellow? 

Green glow 

Heart Malagra

Anyway time to get going. Busy day. 

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 987 Polo!

Leave a comment

This polo pony and rider took hours to draw and paint. Lesson learned when doing a horse like a face BIGGER is better. 

The rider looks tall because he’s up out of his saddle in the stirrups a little and polo ponies tend to be short.  Who wants a tall polo pony. Nobody. It makes it harder to hit the ball on the ground and it’s good to not lean out of the saddle too much. 

Anyway actually drew this with pencil on 300 # Arches cold press and painted it with Ted Nuttalls transparent colors plus cerulean.  

Truly time to paint. Margaret in charlotte. Xoxo I feel a trip to cheap Joes coming on!!

A bit of fluff or?! 

2 Comments

Really enjoying making these pages in my reclaimed Saks catalog – from my sons recycle bin. You can’t tell but there’s actual journaling under this page. 

This is the first one I did. 

I forgot to take photos of the process but it started out journaled on and then white and green and finally blue acrylic paint. 

The cover 

One of the pages in process. 

Then I added collage elements. And Prismacolor art sticks and neocolor ii and hmm white paint pen. Some stamping. You name it it gets done to these pages. One of the things that makes it fun. 

Go sign up for Juliana Coles awesome Book of the night class. 

I think I like the graffiti like aspect of these pages. I do love to look at some interesting graffiti. I actually left this at life modeling in the art studio Saturday and nobody decided they needed it more than I did. Hmmm does that mean it was respected or they hated it. 

Ttyl Margaret off to charlotte for a class in wc. Let the fun begin. 

Day 985 Some Rachel time

Leave a comment

A good way to start a Monday!


This ones a little busy but it was a busy day on Thursday. For that matter so was Friday. 

Oddly I noticed Rachel looks a little tired in this sketch. If I hadn’t deleted it I would go back and look at it to see if she was. Those kinds of things turn up in sketches even if you don’t notice them while you are watching. 


I actually think I might like this better unpainted. Oh well. As you can tell the news continues to astound me. The spy novel keeps building and building. 

As Chuck Lorre posted after Big Bang “our best hope to save the day is an eighty year old slab of beef jerky from Arizona(McCain) and his trusty sidekick Scarlett O’Hara(Lindsey Graham)!!


Off to bed. Ttyl. 

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 984 Alex and Willie

Leave a comment

Every Sunday I watch CBS SUnday Morning. My fav bits on it are the partsabout  artists or singers people stuff. And this show is crammed with them. Alex was on this am talking about his 45 impersonations. Hard to resist sketching him. He morphed into 45. The mans definitely making me political!! 

The background was Quin gold but not enough contrast w the head. Like the orange one better. After all he is the Orange One”

Have always loved Willie and meant to just draw him. He just popped onto the page. What’s not to love about an 84 year old who says “we woke up and we are still not dead!”??

Think they are done. Maybe. Trying to resist the urge to scribble on them in the background with a soft dark pencils. So many quotable quotes from them both.  

Painted on 280# Arches Cold Press with Ted Nuttalls transparent palette plus cerulean, hematite and cheap Joes Andrews Turquoise. Pen pentel brush pen. 

Ttyl Going to try my hand at horses today. 

Margaret taking a walk in the park today too. 

Day 982 Dr Sketchys 2

Leave a comment


Love the Chinese dresses Foxy wore at Dr Sketchys Wednesday. Gorgeous fabrics and they fit her like a glove.  Classic Chinese dresses probably from her home in Taiwan. 

This is my favorite sketch I think though the next one is nice too. 

Both 11×14″ Super Aquabee tablet. Noodler Konrad WN colors in a whiskey painter box with a Cotman travel box full of Daniel Smith quinacridones. I used a gold Wink of Stella marker to sparkle these.  

This was a challenge to add origami elements. I have folded thousands of those cranes and a few of the frogs. As a kid I loved doing origami since the first kit I received for Christmas. I think she’s slightly out of proportion. Head to big. Legs a tad too short but I like her anyway. A lot to draw and paint in 20 minutes!!

Day 982 Last Nite!

2 Comments

After several disastrous sketches I knew I could handle our beautiful Asian model when I did this watercolor in ten minutes or so. 

All sketches are 11×14 in a Super Aquabee tablet. Love that paper. Painted with my whisky painter box loaded with WN and Daniel  Smith Quin coral and an old Cotman palette loaded with every quinacridone I own plus thalo blue and green black and white gouache. Painted with a pentel waterbrush. 


These are all two minute sketches. Some of these will probably be altered. And most are pretty awful. As in EEEKKK I Don’t feel good and I can’t draw a thing tonite. This one was the worst. 


Better.  I decided to give up my go to Dr Sketchys pen the Pentel Brush pen and use a Noodler Konrad. Life improved.  I always think it’s interesting how a change of pen can improve your drawing skills when they aren’t going well. 

Next We had a challenge to turn her into a fox. Evidently her stage name is Foxy. As some of you know I like to draw chickens. Follow them around at Key West to draw them or sit and watch them and sketch them. Never thought chickens could be so much fun but they are. 

Really like the sketchiness of her body and legs in this one. 

Ttyl another busy day. Haircut picking up paintings and back to aiken for a reception for a friends show.  

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 980 A few of those 100 people 

Leave a comment

Painting the Farmhaus people 

And a few of my tv sketches. Really liking the background colors. A lot different than my usual cerulean. Sometimes it pays to get outta the box you are in. 

Painted with Ted Nuttalls transparent palette. 

Book club tonite. If you haven’t read When Breathe Becomes Air by Paul Kalanathi do. Don’t know when a book has made me cry more. So poignant. Wonderful book.

Book club tonite. Off I go. Xoxoxo Margaret.  

Day 979 -21 Days left

Leave a comment

Till 1000. The goal is nigh! 

Taking an online class in extreme journaling with Julianna Coles. All my questing for a book at goodwill, salvation army, thrift stores and in the garage where I found a forgotten stack of books I found the perfect book in my son’s recycle bin in Atlanta. It’s a heavy thick very slick Saks sales ad. Since it was trash I didn’t feel bad about altering it. It also had some nice photos of women in it. 

Despite babysitting the grandchildren single handedly, lecturing to middle schoolers about art quilts aka show n tell and driving about four hundred miles I bounced out of bed to start the monster mash process this morning. 


I worked on the cover since I did not like the big script Saks on the cover. 

Oddest thing happened when I opened a huge old Bartletts to cut out poetry. I don’t think I even turned a page. It opened to a page that held a poem about “locking all your heart aches inside” and “hide it in your trunk” “will hide all your failures””will rise to meet you yet” and of course I cut them out and glued them on.  


I don’t think it’s quite done the more I look at them. Bout maybe they are never done? They will tell me. Lots of fun.  Go sign up.  

 

The first double page spread. Thinking it’s still too busy. 

I painted stamped collages scribbled and painted and lettered and I could go on but it’s time for French. Acrylic paint caran dache neocolonial ii prismacolor paintstiks paint marker. 

The books about the size of a piece of printer paper. Can’t wait for the next chapter. 

Margaret xoxoxo #julianacoles