Category: Atlanta georgia

Sailing down the Dee

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An old derelict boat on the side of the river. Today in my inbox there was an email from Etcher.com to pay $5.50 for access to drawing a boat with Ian Fennelly. I was willing to throw five dollars away in case it was bad. Well it was and it wasn’t. NO PHOTO to draw from. What the heck. So I went to Ian’s IG feed and did a screen shot.

The video also did weird things. I watched it in a window a little bigger than a postcard. If it restarted once it restarted four times. Never going back to where you were. Groan.

Here’s his. Love the silly birds. Seagulls of a sort.

First thing u do is lay out the shape using markers to fix it in your mind.

Then you draw it with a midtones grey tombow. I think this is a 25.

I finally made a key to the shades of my nine shades grey tombows. Got tired of opening each of them up.

So I got bored and went ahead of the video. The video was very cumbersome. If you had to restart it always went back to the beginning. WHAT?!!

My footprints got out of control. As a friend quipped they looked like elephant tracks. Eeekk.

What to do what to do. So much work and a massive screwup.

White pentel gel pen to the rescue. I may add some white watercolor paint to it also.

Here are all the pens. The tombows and pentel permanent liners. Mostly used the .3 on this piece.

Margaret watching Haregan and Oprah. Not sure I will stick with it. Hmmm. Xoxoxo

A Quick Trip to England

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To draw the Harp Inn on the River Dee with Ian Fennelly and Sketchbookskool. A lot of fun but like chasing a greyhound painting with Ian.

The photo. The Harp Inn, Little Neston, England near Liverpool has quite a history including coal miners getting stuck here during floods from the River Dee across the street. The interior is on Yelp and looks quite interesting. Ian said the building was more than 200 years old.

Really wanted to do this view with the great Harp sign but hard to change from what the teachers doing without getting confused.

A quick sketch with my light grey Tombow pen – the pointy end. The lines are all slightly tilted. Nothing is square in the drawing though in reality the inn is square aka plumb.

Adding ink with my .5 pentel permanent pen. Don’t know where my thinnest one has gotten. Oops.

Laying in some watercolor. Got a little too dark with the ultramarine and burnt sienna on the roof at this stage. Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna, Yellow ochre, a dab of cad red and cobalt teal.

Painted with a 1″ flat and a rigger. Yes a rigger.

Using various grey tombows to color in the letters and other darks. Then a .3 pentel marker for line work and cross hatching.

I lifted a lot of the dark sienna and ultramarine off the house. Even though this is hot press paper the fluid paper is user friendly and lets you lift some of it. It even let me lift some of the pen when I took off the paint. Oops. But that was permanent ink. Not something u can usually lift.

I added a lot more crosshatching. Also since this house is daub finish dots all over with anything I could make dots with. Winsor Newton watercolor markers. Yellow ochre and turquoise. More line work with the .5 and .8 pentel pens and the uniball micron pen.

Now I am tahred. The kitties and the puppy want my attention. Margaret Xoxoxoxo

Around the World in 60 Seconds

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Drawing each icon of their country for 60 seconds each with Danny Gregory today on YouTube. He had a slide show of each of the icons that let you view it for 60 seconds. Then on to the next one.

Quite the challenge. Also trying to get them all on one page was a challenge. Eeek. And no time to plan. Double eeek.

So not bad considering EXCEPT the first time I didn’t realize it was suppose to be on ONE page. I used SIX!!

These are quite large. The sketchbook – a handprint journal is 5 1/2x 8″.

This set was drawn with my pentel brush pen which is always fun but makes a big thick line. I only used two colors. Quin gold and cobalt teal. Together they made a great mucky green.

So second time around I used my Namiki fude. Love drawing with them making thin or thick lines easily. Check out the weird tip on it. Does a great job.

No I didn’t cheat. I didn’t pause the video either time except to get the dog in. And then I started it right back up.

It’s time for pot kitties again. They have grown a lot. Halley looks gorgeous with an orange glow from the sunset on her back.

Margaret xoxoxo

Every day a sunrise

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Making mist in the blue ridge. Arches 280#cold press. Cheap Joe’s American Journey paint.

Took photos of the process today. But it might be easier if you wanted David R. Smiths YouTube videos. This is the short one. Then the longer more involved one. Or you could sign up for his online class next Tuesday. Should be fun. His students give him rave reviews.

First layer wet the paper add yellow sun red ring and cobalt. Spray it with a spatters spray. Dry it.

First row of trees. Wet under the trees and spatter again. Lift some color form the bottom w a thirsty brush. Aka dry brush which will suck up the paint making the mist. Dry after the colors run and mix.

Repeat on the left.

And so on and on. Repeat repeat. Repeat. Getting darker with each layer. Load bottom of trees w water. Paint the trees. Spatter tops w water. Lift some off bottoms w a thirsty brush. And dry.

Last layer is the darkest. It’s wet here.

I lifted some with my thirsty brush and this one is dry.

Crash and burn

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Go round 2. Misty Mountains arches

Watched a free YouTube video on shopkeeparty with David R Smith this am. Very interesting technique. Uses lots of water. Wiping spraying letting colors run.

This was go round 1 on Kilimanjaro. I used too much alizarin and could not get the ring to lift. Oh well.

Too tired to type more.

Margaret putting her feet up. Xoxoxo

Toyota time

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Now that I have had my second vaccine I decided time to brave the Toyota showroom cesspool and get my car a check up.

Was fun to have a real human to draw for once. This lady held quite still for a long time reading a real book.

Drawn with a fine Pitt pen stillman and birn alpha. Painted with this set of travel fuumuui kolinsky brushes I got from Amazon. Sizes 4,8,12. They have brass tubes for handles so they can collapse into the leather folder they come in. Nice brushes for $25. Great reviews. People love them and they hold up well.

Evidently Zoe’s kitty missed her while we were in Atlanta. This cat will not come near me. I can only pet her when she’s eating. But Zoe. Much to Zoe’s chagrin she follows her around rubbing all over her. Doesn’t she know most Jack Russells like to eat cats!? Lucky for her Zoe tolerated them.

Margaret xoxoxo

On the Adriatic

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Croatia. Paint along #three with Vlad Yesileyev. He’s taking a group there to paint this summer he hopes. Covid willing.

Done for now and maybe forever. 

The photo

The value sketch.

The sketch. 140# rough Hahnemuhle Cezanne great paper. Only thing I don’t like abt it it buckles when soppy wet but dries flat. Paint and paper from Cheap Joes. Love them.

First washes. Looks very ghost like. This photo was taken when it was wet. See the buckles?!

Adding midtones.

Adding darks and the water. Painting those darn boats. Hmm they were the easiet thing to paint. Actually this was not a hard painting. Just a lot to do.

And done. I need a nap now after the paint along. Work slap out!! 😂

Margaret whose ready to tuck up on the sofa with a blanket. Xoxoxo

Wild and Wet

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Winter Petersburg: Blue bridge, Moika Embankment

With Tatiana Asinismova. She was speaking Russian and was on St Petersburg while Vlad Yesileyev translated. When his internet went south his wife Marina who is in Moscow visiting family stepped up and ably continued translating.

This painting was done completely wet on wet using Paynes grey, burnt sienna, sepia, cad yellow, yellow ochre, white gouache. Period paragraph. I added some ultramarine because there was no blue in my Paynes grey.

Draw fast the paper is suppose to be being soaked. Times like this all the sketching I do comes in handy.

Soaked both sides of the a half sheet of 140# Kilimanjaro cold press paper first w a hake brush. No taping. Cheap Joe’s American Journey paint.

A few swipes of yellow ochre. Next we used a cat’s tongue brush loaded with layers grey. Swoosh swoosh the sky was done.

Dabs of burnt sienna across the horizon line.

Smidges of black verticals. Hmm what are those?

Next knocking out the bridge all the while painting into this wet morass. Burnt sienna and paynes grey.

What are those things poking up we are painting?! 🤔🤔🤔 A light!! Zip zip done. (It’s really pretty straight but the paper has a ripple because some sunny stood it up and let it dry standing up making a ripple. Duh!)

On to the river and the snow. Oops I didn’t draw it so I winged it. A little rewetting of the paper. Very interesting making the light and dark areas, fuzzy and sharp edged.

And don’t forget to leave some ice chunks.

Painting the right hand side of the bridge. My least fav part but we soldiered on. Burnt sienna and Payne’s grey. Are there any other colors?! Oh a dab of ultramarine. Splatter splatter. Paint faster. Splatter with white gouache.

Finally use a tooth brush loaded with white gouache to make the snow. I am sure there are 89 YouTube videos on how to do this. Looks just like snow. Hoping this is as close as my house will get to snow this year.

Tatianas class sample. You can follow her on Instagram at Tatianaasimova6056

She’s also teaching a class with Vlad Mar 7. The painting will be similar to the above photo. Can’t wait. Click the link to check it out.

If you want to try this technique Vlad or Marina is going to post this class on YouTube soon. Was really so much fun. I love splashing paint about. Paint flinging c’est moi!!!

Margaret exhausted because she finished another painting today too but that’s for another day. Hugs. Xoxoxox

Otterly fun

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I got a little heavy handed in a lot of ways with this little guy. Too much masking fluid and it was in lumps. No clue why it did that. Then I made his body too fat.

The photo which was twisted a bit to the right.

Doing the face. Colors used. Burnt umber, opera pink, grey, burnt sienna, quin gold, ultramarine. Lots of wet on wet.

Adding the body.

Done for now. I think he may need some more splatters. I may give it another go. But first a nap.

Hugs xoxoxox

One more

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High Street, Henley, UK

Hot press fluid 140# watercolor paper

I did this on a shopkeeparty.com paint along g w Ian Fennelly that I posted in my YouTube list of his classes yesterday. Lots of fun. Love hitting the Pause button.

I started painting this a little after 9 last nite. But it was fun.

The drawing and the shading. This is mostly tombow pen with some Pitt pen for details. The Pitt pens are permanent.

Watercolor layer done. I only used a few colors. Quin sienna, ultramarine, alizarin, burnt umber a dab of cerulean, and yellow ochre. Next time I will use more transparent color.

the finish. I really enjoyed doing the details in ink with Pitt pens like the column cap, the bricks, the sidewalk, tv antennas and a plethora of other details. Shading with cross hatching so much fun. It’s somehow soothing. I used a .03 Pitt pen for that. The Pitt pens have India ink in them.

Now I need to do some of Augusta or Atlanta. Really enjoy doing these. Been a pen nut since first grade and probably a painting nut even longer.

Margaret watching an ink seminar on crowdcast. My there are some positives about covid like zoom and crowdcast activities.

Xoxoxo