Sketchbookskool drawing party

Yesterday You try drawing with your none dominant and see how well yours turn out. But a lot of fun. I switched from a fine Pitt pen to the brush pen. You also do it as a contour aka look at your hand while you draw. All things considered these turned out well.

Today A thick and a thin line. Used a blue pilot pen for the thick line and a micro uniball. Interesting look. Might do another with the brush pen and fine point. Bytw for some reason the pilot and the uniball just smear with an index finger doe interesting shadows in my stillman and birn Alpha- my pandemic sketchbook.

One last page while I was waiting for Danny to start an odd bird I never see. I will look it up when I get over being tired from my 4:3o wake up to get to Publixs by 7 am. Then hauling all the groceries and the endless washing and wiping. Just goes on and on and on.

This downy woodpecker hit my window. Hope it’s ok. Was worried the cat would get him. He’s just gorgeous.

Speaking of cats. Buying this from Juliana Coles. Soooo excited. Love her art work and her Pirate art.

One last note cause my youngest bossy son said to do this:

My son who hates forwarded emails said this was one of the most useful

Things he had seen about the virus and that I should post it to Facebook so here it is!

From a former Respiratory therapist: save this treatment plan just in case-excellent!

CORONA Common Sense

Since they are calling on Respiratory therapist to help fight the Corona virus, and I am a retired one, too old to work in a hospital setting. I’m gonna share some common sense wisdom with those that have the virus and trying to stay home. If my advice is followed as given you will improve your chances of not ending up in the hospital on a ventilator. This applies to the otherwise generally healthy population, so use discretion.

1. Only high temperatures kill a virus, so let your fever run high. Tylenol, Advil. Motrin, Ibuprofen etc. will bring your fever down allowing the virus to live longer. They are saying that ibuprophen, advil etc will actually exacerbate the virus. Use common sense and don’t let fever go over 103 or 104 if you got the guts. If it gets higher than that take your tylenol, not ibuprophen or advil to keep it regulated. It helps to keep house warm and cover up with blankets so body does not have to work so hard to generate the heat. It usually takes about 3 days of this to break the fever.

2. The body is going to dehydrate with the elevated temperature so you must rehydrate yourself regulaly, whether you like it or not. Gatorade with real sugar, or pedialyte with real sugar for kids, works well. Why the sugar? Sugar will give your body back the energy it is using up to create the fever. The electrolytes and fluid you are losing will also be replenished by the Gatorade. If you don’t do this and end up in the hospital they will start an IV and give you D5W (sugar water) and Normal Saline to replenish electrolytes. Gatorade is much cheaper, pain free, and comes in an assortment of flavors

3. You must keep your lungs moist. Best done by taking long steamy showers on a regular basis, if your wheezing or congested use a real minty toothpaste and brush your teeth while taking the steamy shower and deep breath through your mouth. This will provide some bronchial dialation and help loosen the phlegm. Force your self to cough into a wet wash cloth pressed firmly over your mouth and nose, which will cause greater pressure in your lungs forcing them to expand more and break loose more of the congestion.

4. Eat healthy and regularly. Gotta keep your strength up.

5. Once the fever breaks, start moving around to get the body back in shape and blood circulating.

6. Deep breath on a regular basis, even when it hurts. If you don’t it becomes easy to develope pneumonia. Pursed lip breathing really helps. That’s breathing in deep and slow then exhaling through tight lips as if your blowing out a candle, blow until you have completely emptied your lungs and you will be able to breath in an even deeper breath. This helps keep lungs expanded as well as increase your oxygen level.

7. Remember that every medication you take is merely relieving the symptoms, not making you well.

8. If your still dying go to ER.

I’ve been doing these things for myself and my family for over 40 years and kept them out of the hospital, all are healthy and still living today.

Thank you all for sharing. We gotta help one another.”

All This Sounds logical to me. One of my favorite things to do when I get congested is steam my few brains out over a very steamy dishwasher on the rinse cycle with a beach towel over my head and the gap in the door. ALWAYS clears my chest up.

Hugs Margaret who may have a date with her dishwashers drying cycle. Slight case of asthma today. Xoxoxo Stay Safe!!

Online art fun

First up was Draw your feet with sketchbook skool this morning. They are streaming draw along videos every day at 9 and 12 on their YouTube channel.
Pentel brushpen Stillman and Birn Zeta
Use three colored pencils today with Danny Gregory who does the 12 noon show. He also has a list of drawings prompts which originated on his Everyday Matters Yahoo list.

Drawn with three colored pencils
Pentel brushpen Stillman and Birn Zeta

Last but not least I drew my dog Zoe after watching Streamline Art Videos on Facebook. Yesterday they had Johanne Mangi. Her dog paintings are marvelous. Wouldn’t mind taking a class from her but they are trying to sell their videos which are pricey. $127 for Johannes. I am sure it’s wonderful BUT I have one of their videos – did I say packed with info but put me to sleep. Seriously I took a good nap watching mine.

Moving on discovered a New Zealander today – a wonderful portrait painter Andrew Tischler. If you don’t watch anything else watch his video about painting his grandfather Harry. Marvelous painting. Just a little advertising.

Tim Wilmot does great YouTube videos. There are at least fifty about an hour long. Little or no advertising just glowing little jewels. On this one he even shows how to do a bit of photo editing with your computer. And a delightful british accent. He’s in England- probably the only reason I haven’t taken a class from him.

Anyway big day tomorrow scrubbing the pollen off the back porch but feel sure I will dip into the quick sketchbook skool draw alongs. Always fun. And Danny can be soothing in the face of this calamity.

Hugs. Stay strong. Xoxoxox we have got this. Margaret.

Out my back window today. Gorgeous spring morning.

Turner watercolors

Been reading this great book called Turners Apprentice by Tony Smibert who has studied Turner for years.

Great book with lots of tips from this master watercolor painter.

A lot on how Turner achieved his stunning watercolor effects.

A wealth of Turners to drill over.

And how to achieve some of these same effects.

The brushes NOPE Not your good sables. Said one brush is from the kitchen and it looks suspiciously like my basting brush. The round one at top right.

I do know Cheap Joes sells a similar one that is Jamie Wyeth favorite to wear out. Then Joe replaces it free under their warranty. Hmm or was that Skip Lawrence?! Joe has the returned one framed in their art gallery in the shop in Boone NC.

Combining colors. Smibert leaves no stone unturned.

The drawings and adding color to them. Those ethereal colors are to die for.

Color manipulations. I do love juicy transparent color.

A screen shot from his website. I am pretty sure I have been there. Haven’t you?!

Then I discovered his student Scott Swinson on YouTube. He shares a lot of the wet on wet techniques in his great videos. You can also follow Scott on Instagram.

Another Scott painting.

Crazy man uses 3m scotch tape to tape his paper down. Who knew. And releases it with a hair dryer when it’s trying to stick to the painting. Betting the tape is cheaper than masking tape.

Margaret whose missing her YouTube video. Xoxoxo

Rainy days =

Lazy days. And today it’s a cold rainy drizzly day almost sleet of it were cold enough.

I had fun redrawing this with my Namike fude pen today. It’s a calligraphy pen that makes the most interesting lines. I let it dry before painting and didn’t quite get around to the painting.

I did journal all over the background. We had a lot of fun hanging out at the Schooner Wharf Bar in Key West Bight enjoying the breezes the boats and the chickens accompanied by drinks and Caribbean music. What better way to spend a hot day in Key West?!

It looked similar to this before I used the fude on it.

Hmm maybe this one is next.

Margaret who has decided to trash her Saturday painting g of Emily. Xoxoxox

Key West Dreaming

All this drizzly rain is making the thought of steaming hot Key West wonderful right now though I will say NO more trips to Two Friends. First time we went it was wonderful. Second time worst food I have eaten anywhere. Fried shrimp lost in thick nasty batter. To add insult to injury the two chickens got on another table to scavenge leftover food. Understandable when they roam freely and are protected BUT what wasn’t good was the table was not wiped down before the next couple sat down. Yuckkkk.

The chickens also raced around the restaurant vying for a piece of lettuce. Who knew it was so tasty?!!

Now I meant to chronicle our trials on the background of this page but right now liking the painting so much might want to leave it alone.

Fealin Lin PaLeTTe colors in a Stillman and Birn Zeta. Lamy Joy pen with Noodlers eelskin Ink.

Margaret settling in for a midwinters nap before she finishes her sock. One more inch!! Xoxoxo

Sketching in the rain

For some reason the power company decided to recalibrate our electricity today so I got up at the crack of dawn and fled the house or my car would have been Moored in the garage. Inner Bean was my friend all this am – a warm cozy haven on a wet drizzly miserable day.

Hot tea was moi this am.

Namike Fude pen Noodler eelskin Ink

Margaret about ready for bed and it’s still raining. Xoxoxox

When you break down

And buy an espresso machine it’s worth a journal page or two. Figuring out the different espressos available is like learning a foreign language. I bet there are twenty types all in Italian. Hmmm.

Anyway this machine makes it possible to make any size you want by popping in a capsule form like a Keurig and very shortly you have a cup full.

My favorite thing is that it pops the old capsule out into the container on the right of the machine. Kinda fun.

Margaret whose thinking it’s too late to have a cup. What do U think?! Xoxoxo

Nasty rainy

Watercolor and inktense pencil after I wet it.

Wet day. A good day to binge steaming tv and knit. Have I NO. I decided it would be a good day to go shopping. Isn’t that when you like to shop?!🤣. I did beat the monsoon home but the humidity was 81% til the rain. We were dripping.

Been reading a fun book called Living Out Loud today by Kari Smith and decided to do some journal pages aka make a record of all my sock knitting mania in January and continuing in February before my hand falls off from the knitting nuttiness.

Watercolor and inktense pencil. This one was before I wet the pencil. It gets much more intense when you wet it. I used a spray bottle on this one just to see what happened. Worked well except turquoise which tried to run.

Drawn with a S Pitt sepia pen and a Lamy Ef w brown Noodlers ink in it.

Margaret ready to knit abit. Xoxoxo

My Bird Count

The birds have been flocking on the back porch feeders like crazy lately. No idea why. Sometimes there a just a few for days and other times they just swarm out there. Lately it has been the swarms.

Seven cardinals 30 or more finches 3 or 4 doves plus titmice and chickadees. They also fly off and lands in swarms.

Audubon back yard bird count coming up soon. How do you count them ?!! One lands and another takes off. Hmmm

Bet a few of these get some color like the cardinals predictably.

Sepia F Pitt pen aka extra fine brown. Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook

Did I say more rain predicted for Tuesday.

Margaret already onto another pair of socks. Xoxoxo
Continue reading

Done I think

Can u tell how I changed her?! It now looks like Ilaina. I only changed five or six very small tweaks. Take a guess and I will list what I changed tomorrow.

Here’s how she looked about ten minutes ago. That’s about how long it took to make the changes.

Drew Murphy’s. I forgot to post these yesterday. He’s been using a new kind of acrylic paint from Holland that he loves. Thick and buttery.

I took a pic when I thought this was Alexis’s but I think it’s my a lady named Amy who was next to Alexis.

And the gestures. Half an hours worth.

One minute vine charcoal on cheap newsprint

She did some fantastic yoga poses.

Next up three five minutes to complete the half an hour of gesture poses.

really like this one a lot. They were drawn with a general charcoal pencil Liked drawing with it much better.

And that’s a wrap for Tuesday life modeling.

Oh Dr Doolittle too much fun in a movie. Great cgi. And RObert Downey JR to swoon over. Think I will take my grandkids to see it.

Margaret Xoxoxox