Can you figure out where I messed up?! The tall guy on the right. No idea how I did that. Thinking of painting over him with watercolor ground and having a redo.
As it is it’s unusable and I really like the rest of it. We shall see. So aggravating.
Ttyl margaret on Melt down. Xoxoxo
Pleased to announce that some of my urban sketches and some of my mixed media sketches will be for sale at Wolf and Finch on 859 Broad Street during Arts in the Hearts.
Ttyl more paintings to get ready. Stay tuned!! Xoxoxo margaret
A problem when you are suppose to paint the same thing twice. Eeekkk this is the second one. Thinking it could use a few more greys in the center!?
This is the first one. I drew my friend Monica who giving her talk at the DuPont Planetarium at Ruth Patrick Science Center, USC Aiken. She really does a terrific job.
Kids come from all South Carolina to visit the Science Center and see the Planetarium.
It took me a while just to figure out how to transfer this identically to a piece of 300# lb watercolor.
I traced the original.
Transferred it with Saral.
Traced over it with a pencil.
Traced over it with my Lamy Safari.
And the. I tried to remember how I painted it. The whirlpool vortex was not easy to ain’t the first time let alone another time. Eeekk.
Finally it was time to splatter the night sky with white gouache stars. Be sure to use a stiff toothbrush. I got a soft one first. Oops. Worked much better with a nice stiff toothbrush.
Touched up the Whirlpool Vortex again. And calling it done. I hope!
Painted with lamp black, burnt umber , Ultramarine Blue, alizarin, aureolin yellow, and some Joe’s turquoise.
Margaret who has another commission to get done. Xoxoxox
Still quite a few!!! 🤗
We have no shortage of talking heads in this country. They offer great drawing practice. 
If you can pause your tv it even takes the pressure off of trying to draw them quickly. 
And all they do is talk. And talk and talk. 
And pass a lot of laws that half the country don’t like no matter which side you are on making the other half is unhappy!
The Decatur Businesses Beach Party in downtown Decatur on the square. Ponce de Leon became a giant beach!! Free beach buckets, beach balls and balloons oh and washable tattoos for all!!
An amazing stilt walker. The kids had no idea how he could be that tall! Several people on top of each other was their best guess.
And there he goes legging it down the block or should I say stilting down the block?!
And a rare shot of the old Decatur Courthouse with sun on its face. It usually sits in the shade. Bytw this is now an art gallery.
Off to play with my grandkids. Hugs!!
Ever since I read Julia Childs Mastering the Art of French Cooking as a child I have been in love with the notion of all things French and especially the quintessiantal French food – the omelette.
But I never could figure out how they made that neat rolled omelette.
Watching Jacques Pepins American Master show on PBS I thought YOUTUBE!!
Sure enough. There he was teaching how to cook an omelette.
Omelette Number 1 of course I had to draw it to commemorate the occasion.
First mistake I had been making was not using the right pan so I got it a big 10-12″ round edged skillet that was coated w the green coating that releases easily.
And I hadn’t been using the spatula to scrape around the edges as I cooked. Who knew?
And I stuffed mine. Trying to eat those greens and I had to have some Cheddar cheese.
The most delicious thing I have ever eaten. I swear. Not so pretty but amazing.
Omelette 2 Today.
Prettier shape but too brown.
Anyway colors used to paint it. Cad yellow light, cerulean, yellow ochre, green apatite and sap green for the plate, Ultramarine Blue and burnt umber for the shadow.
TIP: Splattered with palette mess left from painting. Has to be really soupy to splatter. Use more water than you think. And I just use a large paint brush in this case my 10 Da Vinci. I also painted this with the same paint brush.
Margaret xoxoxo
I painted this a while back and never got around to posting him. An older gentleman enjoying his kindle or his iPad in the window of the Inner Bean. I have painted that light several times. It alway eludes me. MAybe tomorrow when I meet Marsha there forBrunch?!
Ted Nuttalls transparent palette.
That light. I coated it with Quin gold first. Then cerulean. Probably the color that got me into trouble. It’s opaque. I think the shadow is Daniel Smith piemonite with ultramarine blue. Love piemonite.
Two days til Boone!!! And Charles Reid. Ttyl Margaret xoxoxo
There were three interesting new exhibits at the Morris. The two I have posted and Hopper like photos of Alabama.
One was by New Orleans oil painter James Michalopoulos filled with bright colors and whacky odd ball angles.
His titles were often funny like the first title I posted. Unthinkin in My Lincoln. Obviously he loves old cars.
While the cars were great his paintings of the New Orleans houses were my favorites. Lots of Thick paint.
Definitely an exhibit an urbansketcher can enjoy.
Enjoy!!
Spent a great afternoon yesterday at the Morris Art Museum in downtown Augusta on Riverwalk with some of my favorite painter friends – the members of Al Byers Advanced Painting Class. Interesting listening to their comments and to Als who as a professor and a New Yorker always has an opinion which he will readily share!🤗
I thought I would take you on a virtual field trip to the Morris with us. It was one of the first museums to deal only in Southern art.
When you enter via the stairs the first thing you see are the water colors of Aiden Lassell Ripley (1896-1969.). Ripley caught the South in the early 1900s in a series of watercolors and prints that line the hall at the top of the stairs.
His bio says “He was attracted by the interplay between the solidity of buildings and the patterns of light and shadow they created, interspersed with people, the snap of a clean sheet drying on a clothesline, and the shape of trees and bushes.” An early urbansketcher!
These are large full sheet watercolors 22×30″. They have great light and shadows. The Picnic above is perhaps my favorite.
Remember he was painting these fifty – 100 years ago. There’s a certain timelessness to them. They could still be found throughout the south if we only bother to look. Oddly I am sure we could as Urban Sketchers find some of these places and paint them still. Probably a lot more battered but still standing.
He was getting out and painting the south long before Urbansketching was a thought in Gabes head.
St. James Church Tallahassee Florida
Love the glowing white in this one. He does glowing whites so well.
Southern Shack
I know these still litter the southern landscape.
Springtime – Southern Church
There’s is one of these not a mile from where I sit on Hopewell Church Road in McCormick County SC however there’s no great tree with Spanish moss and I never see people there. Is it abandoned. No idea.
Cabin in Georgia
Obviously many of these were done along the southern coast because the Spanish moss does not grow farther north in the south just along the coast. 
Planters in the Field
Perhaps my least favorite. The figures are stiff and it’s too dark. Great handling of the trees, woods, and that evening sky.
Unexpected Point, Florence SC
I love the light in this painting. It just glows with fall light raking across the horses and riders, glinting off the broom straw and buildings.
You can still see these broom sedge fields with tall pines and rickety old buildings slowly crumbling to the ground. And yes they still hunt for quail and dove in the south.
Ttyl Margaret xoxoxo off for another busy day.
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
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!!
Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art 
