Day 933 Urban Sketching

Went sketching downtown with my sweet  friend AC Daniel. We ended up at the Soy Noodle house eating. Gotta keep your strength up. So far this is my fav sketch done that day. It looks terrible after I painted it but turned it into a journal page with the lettering.

Stillman and Birn Zeta Pentel Brush Pen and Lamy EF. My whisky painter travel palette and waterbrushes.

Wish I had taken a photo of it before the lettering. The brown was just dullllll.

Pleased to announce Augusta is having its first Urban Sketchers meeting. Hopefully Sunday February 12 at Earthfare Meeting Room at 1 pm. Click on the link to join our facebook page, to keep up to date, and to see our art!!!  Lots of sketching will be going on.
Ttyl

Margaret xoxoxo who had to work on her sketchbookskool homework.

Day 932 – Al Beyer


I drew this during art history lecture last Wednesday. Not meant to look like him exactly just the essence and to take notes on the lecture about how to compose a painting and be sure you get all the parts in perspective. When people are added the heads have to line up on your sight line or they will appear to float. Check out John Salimen,  another great art teacher.  He’s a master at composing from photos  with many national and international art awards. His new coffee table book is just gorgeous. 

His DVD  on urban landscapes explains how to compose a picture from several photos.   

Painted with my tiny whiskey painter palette loaded with Windsor newton travel Paullette colors. Refilled with Daniel Smith using the same colors plus DS quin coral. 

A bientot Happy Mondayoff to class I go. 

Margaret xoxox

Day 928 Getting Squirrely

The back porch squirrels and their antics are always fun to sketch. A ready model. Cheap.  Will work for bird seed anywhere anytime anyplace. And of course I like to imagine what they are thinking as they gobble. Really need to name  them Oreck and Dyson or Hoover. Miele?! 

Drawn with a Lamy Safari in a Stillman and Birn Zeta mixed media. 

Colors. Background Quinn gold squirrels cerulean Piemonte ultramarine. Splattered with Quin sienna or burnt orange. 

Have a go at the squirrels. The back porch birds are fun to draw too. Use some gestures. It doesn’t have to look just like a particular squirrel it just had to look like a squirrel – the way they hold their food and hunch up over thier paws or spread their tails. Fun stuff. 

Ttyl 

Margaret off to look downtown and see what there is to sketch in this 72 degree day of sunshine. Xoxoxo

Day 927  Inner Bean again 

But I was drawing lunch not drawing the restaurant. First piece of cake from Inner Bean in months. I used to eat cake there a lot. Not since I have lost 30 lb. 

Worst thing about drawing your food is that you can’t eat it til you draw it. I got

The delicious strawberry cake first. Before the salad. And I was hungry. I resisted. Did I say Inner Bean is famous for its cake?   They won Best Cake in Augusta recently. The cake is Just THE  best.

Ttyl

Margaret with a busy week. Getting ready for My solo show next week. Xoxox

Day 924 Gesture sketches 

A gesture sketch is done looking at a person usually but I got annoyed with the way mine are going and decided to draw the dogs with gestures. 

I think I drew these Tuesday and they were great practice for Dr Sketchys. Here are the rest of them. I really want to draw dancers this way. 

Esmeralda is the top left. Quasimodo, Frollo, and Esmeralda bottom right and left. 

These were all drawn while I was watching Notre Dame de Paris on YouTube. A lot of dramatic gestures good for drawing.  

So how do you draw a gesture sketch!? I used a brush pen on these. No drag! It lets you draw quickly. Gesture sketches are quick – a few lines to capture the gesture. 

Why practice gesture sketches so you can mail sketches at Dr Sketchys or when you are out and about drawing people on the go. It really does help. 
Here’s a pile of them. 

 The first one I did. Eekkk.

Dancers well NO. But they were suppose to be. 


More dancers. Not the greatest but better. 


And a few more dancers. I like these better today than when I drew them.  The feet kept disappearing when I froze tyhe video to draw the dancers or they zipped off into artistic shadows. Visually great to look at but makes drawing HARD!!  

Go try it. A lot of fun. 

Margaret already in her flannel jammies for this cold winter weather. Well cold by Georgia standards.  52!! 😱

Day 922 You Knew It 

Part 2 Dr Sketchys. I did more than a dozen sketches Wednesday nite. And met friends for a delicious dinner at Bees Knees before. Avocado chop chop. Who knew a baked avocado could be  So delicious. Loaded with crab. I really must draw one. And the rainbow trout perfection. All the while we sat in a store display window eating all this deliciousness. 


Going to have to go back and snap some pics when the bar is full. Love this shot it just needs people. 

More jujitau sketches. This one was five minutes I think. 


Hmm his head is too small I think. Hard to tell now with no reference pic. 


We were suppose to add a monkey to this contest sketch but darn I forgot. Too busy drawing and painting. 


Not bad but head is off. Ilaina really is a gorgeous woman inside and out. Doesn’t do her justice. 


The best of three attempts. Body is good but face too cute. 

Chin too long. Legs too short. As I told Rachel I peaked too early. Lol. 

And oh my – legs ridiculously short. Actually head doesn’t look bad. The vagaries of fast sketching.  


Another contest sketch. I will actually be selling this one at Wet Paint an auction for Greater Augusta Arts Council Feb 18. Funny while sketching it I realized that I had no idea what an ak 47 or a kolishnikof looks like. I don’t even know how to spell the later. lol. 

Busy day. Ttyl 

Margaret who needs to shed Her cat and dog blanket and get dressed. Xoxoxo

Day 918 The Feet that Marched 

Right foot left foot. 

Contour drawing. Well supposedly. 

 I tried not to peak at my foot but that’s so hard. Maybe I will try again after my painting class this afternoon.
I had to color this coloring book like page. COULD NOT give up color once we started!!

L-R Noodler Konrad, Lamy Safari, Pentel Brush Pen, Carbon Pen.  

Done with four different pens but I had to color my coloring book page with. Prismacolor art sticks.  

Ttyl time for class. Getting ready for TWO shows. What was I thinking. 

Margaret xoxoxo 

Day 916 skies 

When you live on a river you see a lot skies. Sunrises sunsets and 

 

wild storms blowing in from the west across Georgia and the Savannah River.

Because it was a stormy sky I used a lot of marks to make it hopefully seem stormier. 

These are done with Prismacolor art sticks and colored pencils in my Stillman and Birn Zeta Mixed Media Journal. Lines and lettering with the Lamy Safari I think or the EF. 

Ttyl Margaret xoxox

Day 915 Atlanta 

These are based on photos I have taken in Atlanta the last few years. Drawn on Stonehenge paper with Prismacolor pencils and art sticks. 

The High Museum 5×8″hmm this building is all white but not in my version. Added the red sky to hopefully make building pop. And dabs of lime green to make the red pop or was it the other way around. Complimentary colors do that. 

Ponce City Market-  5x 8″

I take so many photos of this building. So hard to get close enough to take pics of Tower on the right and the name on top of the building. I think one day that name will be an Atlanta icon similar to the Hollywood sign. 

The only difference in these two is the sky. The blue made the orange pop. Complimentary colors do. Think it helped don’t you?!  Also like the letters sort of there but not quite. 

 Fox Theater

I am always getting stuck turning left onto Ponce de Leon from Peachtree in front of the Fox Theater.  I love looking at it. And since I am stopped dead in traffic at a light I whip out my phone and snap a photo or two. 

The Fox is a fairytale Moorish palace complete with a  twinkling star strewn ceiling worthy of Scherazades tales in the heart of Atlanta downtown. If you haven’t been to a show in this one or the one in Detroit treat yourself and go. Just magical. 

 I am going to have another go at this one because it was the first one I tried and it’s not too great. And the Fox needs more from me. 
Thanks for stopping by!!

Margaret xoxoxo 

Day 914 – Your Own Coloring Book

Today’s assignment was draw a coloring book page with a marker and color it. Done!! Don’t forget you can copy  your coloring book page and color it in lots of different ways. 

 Still trying to use the wild fauvist colors. Drawn with my black tombow pen in my Stillman and Birn Zeta. 

Ps don’t know why I didn’t think about this but copying the coloring book page before you color r it you could also share it with your favorite short people like my grandson and niece who are four and five and LOVE to color. What better than their own coloring sheet made by their favorite artist?

Ttyl 

Margaret xoxoxo