I was told by the manager of french Market Grill that this was expensive top drawer tea sold only at the best restaurants as he charged me $8 plus gratuity for this tea. Also available at other fine restaurants like Waffle House. Never bought another meal at french Market Grill.
Thanks for reading
Margaret xxx
Inner Bean is almost all shades of grey so a lot of fun to sketch it and paint it with all those shades of grey and black by mixing blues and Browns to get different greys.
There were a lot of patrons coming and going getting take outs and their awesome coffee to go. The wierd guy in the blue plaid shirt was really into his coffee while he waited for his fellow members of the Mens Club that meets every Thursday afternoon til closing at the Bean.
Most of the other colors were straight out of my paint box. Off course I used my Noodler Creaper Ahab and Carbon Platinum Black ink both of which can be bought at Goulet Pens on the Internet.
Thanks for reading!!
Margaret xxx
On our day trip to Columbia SC Tuesday we stopped by City Art which is carries all the supplies for both Charels Reid and Mary White then we went to Nonnahs and last Mast General on Main Street ended we found this super SQUIRREL PROOF bird feeder.
Mast General Store an old fashioned general store on Main St. The original is in Valle Crucis near Boone NC.
The squirrels are gluttons for bird seed gobbling voraciously. This bird feeder is actually squirrel proof. They are now entertaining us trying to figure out how to get into it. The top locks on and the bar across the front licks the seed up when the weight of the squirrels sets it. LOVE it. They don’t. They are actually hanging out on the porch rails staring at it with occasional attach forays and leave soon after. Very entertaining to watch their consternation over the shut off food supply. And of course they sit there staring making them easy subjects to draw.
Colors used. Inked with my Noodler creaper Ahab loaded with platinum carbon black my go to ink. Greys cerulean and burnt sienna or Inathridone and Burnt umber for darker greys on squirrels. All done wet on wet. Bird feeder is vermilion and cad red medium. Same greys were used on the roof. Background is cerulean toothbrush splattered with Inathridone blue.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
and painting greys.
Tom spent a long time on the sofa grooming today. You have to wonder why cats do that. He’s always immaculate.
He’s drawn and lettered with my Noodler Creaper Ahab. I painted Tom with a wash of orange and then laid in Quin burnt sienna for the stripes and to warm up the orange. The Quin burnt sienna was added when he was wet and when he was dry. He’s really almost red in some light. A dark auburn. Darks are done with burnt umber and Inathridone blue.
Greys. Watercolor makes lovely greys. Combine any blue with any brown or yellow ochre and you can get a wide variety of interesting greys.
Here are a few I made that way.
Sometimes you end up with too much brown in the grey. Better to end up with too much blue!! You can darken the grey by using less water.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
is sketching a friend at breakfast at a local restaurant considered urban sketching?!
Lowered the left eyebrow. It was too high. Still a bit too high but better.
Doesn’t look a bit like Marsha. She kept moving. So I am blaming her for the poor likeness.
I did have a good time dripping and splattering the painting and that’s what counts right?!
Really like the hair. It was washed with burnt sienna and the darkened with tiny bits of cobalt, burnt umber, mineral Violet and Inathridone blue after the initial wash dried. Fun stuff.
Colors used: Quin coral and ochre for skin, vermilion, mineral purple and cobalt, Inathridone blue for blouse, mineral purple and burnt sienna for shadows. Hair is burnt sienna, cobalt, burnt umber and Inathridone blue.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Ten minute pose. This one is going to be used on social media to advertise the Sweeney Todd show at Chat Noir this weekend. Wish I could be there to see it but in Atlanta dogsitting. The red is a wink of Stella brush pen. All red glitter. Makes him look even more gruesome.
The sketching went much better but I do wish I had used my Noodler Creaper Ahab for some of these. Instead I used the Pentel Brush Pen, Tombow Markers, Pentel color brush pens, and Wink of Stella brush pens for some glittery sparkle. both the Tombows and the Colorbrush pens are water soluble and fun to use with a water brush.
This was a ten minute pose. We were supposed to make a poster of him so I turned him into a pirate because I messed up his left eye. Perfect place for a patch. Problem solved. Most of the coloring was done with the Tombows. There was a prize of two free tickets to Sweeney Todd but since I wasn’t going to be there I didn’t enter.
Mickeys a great singer so we drew him as he played the guitar and sang. Tombows and Pentel color brush. 10 minute pose. The challenge of this was drawing his moving arm as he played.
15 minute pose. His leg is too short. Oopsey. It was hard to see in the dark theater. And as I was sitting in front of him I had to peek over the sketch book to see his lower half. Or at least that’s what I am blaming this on. Lol. Couldn’t be me!!
Not quite a disaster but almost. Had her body too long and her legs too short.
Then I shut the book before the black wink of Stella I did the lettering with was dry and it glued the pages together. Poop!
The grey on her legs is where I shortened her body. I used gouache to try to straighten up the stray pen marks and the grey on her legs. For some
Reason my flesh Tombow kept lifting the Pentel brush pen. I don’t remember it doing that before.
At any rate I added the gouache and the black Tombow this morning.
Sometimes a good crop can improve the look of a sketch. Lol.
Thanks for looking.
Margaret xxx
Great nite! Mickey Lay was a great model! Always our favorite sketching activity. It’s worldwide so see if there’s one near you.
2 Minute pose Head is a little small Done w brush pen in a strathmore mixed media sketchbook. I have one just for Dr Sketchys. Thank goodness the drawing went better than the ones I did at Good Books. Perhaps those earlier drawings loosened me up?!
We started with several two minutes poses.
The poses were very interesting. He did a lot of muscle poses. Seemed to have trouble getting the whole body on the paper.
Another two minute muscle pose
The first five minute pose. Hard to hold the spear up in the air for 5 minutes but Mickey did well. Hard pose to hold.
Two five minute costume poses. Finally managed to get his legs on the page. Hallelujah. These were embellished with Pentel brush markers and Tombow markers. The Tombows cover a lot of area quickly and are fun to wet down with a water brush giving a watercolor effect.
Thanks for reading. More dr Sketchys tomorrow!!
Margaret xxx
shopping for Franklin and Froggy books at our Gucci Goodwill. Found a stack. Sat down to draw the customers in the Good Eats Cafe there.
Some days you can’t draw at all. Viewing it as a warm up for Dr Sketchys tonite. Hope I do better then.
These are the best of the trash that I drew. Could not get in the rhythm today.
I brought in a sketchbook with only two pages left DUH! So I drew over some screwed up pages of Rhineharts Oyster Bar.
Browsers and worker bees at Good Books.
Rhineharts roof. Guess I could have drawn on the napkins!?
Sorry about the quality of the photos. Weird shadows from the lights in Good Books.
Maybe color would improve these?! Or a brush pen!?
Thanks for reading.
Margaret XXX
Oh my the goal is getting so close. I will be in Key West I think then so look south for skyrockets. Lol. The year long odyssey can almost see the finish line.
What’s for dinner? Caran d’ache, brush pen 8.5 x 11″
Memorial Day a day for families getting together to eat. So I drew my dinner yesterday. Haven’t done that in a month.
The first time I thought it was finished. Scribbling red and orange around the border to frame it. Also scribbling random colors on the various objects like the knife.
A fast fun sketch with caran d’ache in my sketchbook. They are a lot of fun. You can use them as crayons or you can hit them with a waterbrush and turn them into watercolor. They are a touch opaque if you color too heavily. Also great fun to spray with a fine mist and let them drip drip drip. All those juicy colors sliding down the paper and mingling into mini rainbows. Really a must try.
Adding some finishing touches with my Pentel brush pen or so I thought. The crayons always lighten the brush pen so a lot of times I go back over it when I am done with the caran d’ache.
So treat yourself to a pack of Neocolor ii Caran d’ache crayons. You can get as few as ten though I think 30 or so is better. More is always better right?!!
Thanks for reading!!!
Margaret💋
Fifty more days and I will have posted daily for a year. Oh my!! 
I drew Rhineharts the other day while waiting for friends. Rhineharts motto is beyond casual and it lives up to that. It’s one of Augustas favorite restaurants and is a higgily piggily old house that has been added on to over the last thirty years. The floors are concrete, you sit at picnic benches, oyster shells cover the pine shaded parking lot. Both the picnic tables and walls are covered with names inscribed with magic markers. I added ours with my Noodler Creaper Ahab. If you’re lucky a cat will beg for your shrimp tails.
The drawing had problems. The building is very long and hard to fit on the double page spread. The bits and pieces that jut out here and there make it a perspective nightmare or maybe it’s that nothing in this place is level or square. A builders nightmare!!
Fun making all the greys out of various blues and Browns. Dashes here and there. Of the two colors and greys everywhere. Like the sparkle of the turquoise and the three cooks hanging out in the back porch SmOkiNg done with their lunch shift.
Thanks for reading.
Margaret XXX
Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art 