Category: Art

Day 626 Eglise de Ranville 

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A detail of a WIP of the Eglise de Ranville. I wish the whole building at turned out as well. As Charles Reid an American Master and my personal watercolor art hero says hit it once and be done! 

 

 I got a light hand back when I painted the cemetery. 

  

A bit of history. The cemetery is where the dead from Pegasus Bridge are buried. The church is a lovely old gothic building picked mark with shell holes from the fighting in WW2. RAnville was the first town freed by the Allies during the D Day Invasions. 

A slightly whacky perspective.  I may redraw this one. Originally I drew it standing inside the cemetery gate on a cold blustery day so of course you don’t get a full view. 
I had wanted the old limestone Gothic church much lighter like the tower.  I started with light yellow wash over the whole church. I made a mistake using cerulean and burnt sienna to paint a wash of grey. Cerulean is opaque. Eek! Bad choice.  It can make a great grey as long as you aren’t too heavy with it.

Day 624 – A touch of whimsy

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 A few quick pen sketches I did today at  the Augusta Area Newcomers luncheon. 

I actually was hiding the sketchbook under the table. I warmed up with the lady on the left and proceeded to our auctioneer Ken and then one of my friends hiding behind a huge basket. If I paint them they will know who they are by their clothes. They don’t look a lot like them.  
This one however does look a lot like our esteemed adorable sweet president Susan. Warming up does help!! 

  
I actually won the silent auction on this wonderful acrylic by friend and Dr Sketchy/Saturday life modeling sketching friend Ruth Pearl. LOVE it. Now where to hang it?! 

Noodler Konrad and strathmore 500 Moxed Media sketchbook. Stick those sketchbooks in your lap and get your pens busy. If I can sketch in the middle of 200 people I  know you can do it too. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 623 – a bit more France 

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Arrowmonches Les Bains in Normandy near the D Day invasion  site. Charming quintessential French village by the seaside. Some of the WW2 beach defenses still remain out in the breakers. 

We had a delicious coq au vin lunch at Brasserie 6 Juin.  

I almost missed the bus drawing this picture. 😳 I could have happily sat there drawing the village all afternoon while the others went to the landing sites but it would have been a LONG walk back to the boat moored at quai in Rouen. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx dreaming of France 

Day 622 The Major 

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30×40″ acrylic
 Is done. What else can I say. Hmm should I add at least for today?! 😊 you never know what I might decide needs fixing when I look at him tomorrow BUT I really do think he’s done. 

 

 He will be entered in the big show in Anderson SC next month so let’s hope he doesn’t talk to me anymore. 

 
Detail of his hands

Tip:The smallest brush he was painted with was a 1″ hog bristle filbert. Impossible to get to picky with these brushes. He was also painted with a three inch house painting brush. 

The only work done with a small brush was the original  sketch. It was done with a 1/4″ Winsor Newton monarch filbert. I do love those brushes. 

  
I also finished her up yesterday but she reserves the right to talk to me and say MORE!! 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx whose drowning in the early pollen. Green snow covers the world in Augusta Ga. 

Day 621-Duval Street 

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  I love this beautiful old episcopal church on Duval. St Pauls is supposedly haunted by the sea captain that donated the land to the church. He haunts the tower. 
 
Here’s another view of St Pauls tower against the bright blue Caribbean sky. 

More about Haunted Key West. Great ghost tour. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 620 – River Island

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  Spent a delightful day yesterday with Ann Gilmore and Cyndy Epps painting on Mary Futrells back porch in River Island. We were the features artists on Augusta Symphony 7th Annual Kithcen Tour of homes.  
 


This is one of the things that I painted while I was there. The red trees are red oaks.  Did you know that this is the only time of the year you can tell they are red oaks- because they leaf out with a red blush. 

 
  

Yesterday was a deliciously perfect spring  day to spend on a back porch painting and talking the day away. What fun!! This was our view. 

I guess I was actually Plein air painting for once outside. Usually I stay out of the weather and paint in the car or thru the window at my house because it’s often far too hot or too buggy along the river. 

Colors used alizarin Winsor yellow cerulean cobalt dioxzine purple hematite green ultramarine blue burnt umber burnt sienna Quinacridone sienna. 

Thanks from reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 616 – Flapping those wings. 

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She’s been thru a lot of changes now. Really love her wings. In fact really like EVERYTHING except one tiny thing. Her right breast.  How did it get so round?! But that’s easy to fix. At least I think it is.

Hardest part will be going downstairs to the garage to get the paint out of the car. 

Here are a few before and in he process photos.  

  
Saturday after an hour and a half. Maybe she was better then.  I dunno. Anyway she told me she wanted to be an angel. 

  
Monday. At some point I think I for her left foot to light in the bottom. Hmm how?! And I didn’t like the stripiness of the wings. 

 

Knocking   Back the gold and dark streaks in  wings. I added a lot of brushy dry white. 
   
And the bottom part brushes out whiter. I also added a lot of iridescent gold and a smidge of copper which is impossible to see in a photo. 

Ok so I will fix her foot and her breast.  The foot makes her look floaty somehow. Took me till Judy now looking at all these photos to figure out why she looked that way. 👀  And I thought the problem was her breast. 

Thanks for reading.  

M who needs a nap now. Xxx
Margaretxxx

Day 611 – Stick fun!

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 I have been playing with my stick bamboo stick all week. Done a sketch everyday. The Carbon Black ink from Gouletpens works best with my stick. Not the India ink. It seems to load on the stick better. 

Anyway after I tried to shade the ibis in the back grey since he’s in the shadow I decided to do negative painting in the background letting the ink puddles bleed into the brush water to make various shades of grey. 

It seems impossible to get control of that ink flow. It leaves a lot of hard edges which are great for Key West underbrush but not on a bird. 

After the grey puddles dried a little I went back in and drew ink lines in for sticks on the ground. 

  
If I could change this I would get rid of the grey on the farthest back ibis. 

  
This is yesterday’s ibis. I actually like them except for all the black. These are young ibis and have a lot of mottled grey on their necks. 

Maybe I will redraw them and add some background? I think they are funny. The Ibis at the Key West Wildlife Center are beggars and wait for snacks aka dog food that was fed to them. 

  
My favorite still are the chickens. I don’t know why but I LOVE chickens. 

Did I say writing with a stick does not produce the most graceful writing?  

 
 Here’s another chicken sketch done earlier.  I can’t imagine dong this on location. I would have an inky mess everywhere.  Not good when it’s permanent and very black!! 

I also had a paper problem. I used my beloved 93 # Aquabee first but the ink is so thick from the stick that I got out my #98 Canson mixed media sketchbook and used it. No more ink soaking they the paper. At least not yet. 
And here’s Livia again.  One of the first sketches withy the stick  from last Sunday. I don’t know why I didn’t notice one of her legs is smaller than the other. But that’s an easy fix. Sketching frequently had a lot of surprises like a too skinny leg. 
Enjoy your day. Happy stick sketching. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 610 – The Home Stretch is ON!!

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30×40″ acrylic 

Major Dad is making progress. In case u missed passed posts will add some of the process.  

 

  • Original photo. Major Dad at 93!  Did not want to paint all those chickens!! 

   
The block in. 

 
Playing with the photo in Waterlogue 

 
 Washing in the foundation colors. Recent reading about acrylics told me NOT to do this with just water. If you use more than 25% water with your acrylics it breaks down the polymer binders. I used polymer gel to thin it. 

Read about more than you ever wanted to know about acrylic paint  and mediums here on liquitex.com. 120 plus pages of anything and everything about acrylic paints. I read the whole book and it’s actually very interesting. 

Bytw I use both Golden and Liquitex. I still have a few older paintings that are painted with liquitex which was the first acrylic and they are still in great shape. I buy whichever is on sale with a coupon. 👍🏻

 

Layering in color. Did you know u can use the cheap paints for this later and finish with the expensive stuff?! Sounds like a lot of work, right?! 

  
I added back in a lot of the lines I had painted over trying to tie the painting together. I also lost some of the lines on the face. Probably need to loose a few more on his hands. 

When he’s done he’s getting a coat of acrylic varnish as soon as I get the kind the book lists.  Evidently there is one that liquitex makes that is removeable with ammonia. Who knew. The book also said all acrylics should be sealed because otherwise. they remain porous. 

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 609 -The Party’s Over

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This is the last sketch done during Wet Paint party. I drew Sallie doing check out as we waited to pick up painting. Thank goodness Sallie bought mine. 

  

This sketch started the quotes.  I started to write “Even James has a cell phone” but I thought it would be more fun to write a JB quote. Did you know there’s a website with endless James Bond movie quotes?! 

 

 Hope I didn’t post this one but evidently the modern James Bond likes his cell phone!  I only drew a bakers dozen James Bond sketches si it gets confusing. 

Thanks for reading!! 

Margaret xxx