Anyway a recipe for a good dark black. Alizarin viridian and indigo til its black. Works everytime. Good luck and happy painting. Margaret xoxoxoxox
Things found and a black black
Category: Azaleas
#28
Quitting. I like this one. A little too realistic because of the hard edges would be my only critique. The roses went well. Did them with alot of wet on wet to keep the edges soft. I seem to be painting alot of leaves lately. Ready to NOT paint leaves. Lol.
Half sheet fluid 140# which performed so well I wonder why I ever use anything else. Lifted like a champ.
Johannes Vloothuis did a free class on artist network today. While he was doing oil i painted watercolor. Really not painted in the same way at all but i enjoyed. He runs a very well organized class. his prices are so reasonable as to be ridiculous. $25 for three upcoming classes. I may take them although i really need to be doing my own work but i am a sucker for a deal.
Leaves were painted with blue and yellow i have and then i added some white gouache to a few. i used thalo blue ultramarine joes turquoise colbalt green gold cad yellow light aureolin yellow ochre to name a few. Oh and chrome green and thalo green. I tried them all. I should gave tried my beloved winsor newton filbert. Super painting for leaves.
See ya in one of Johannes classes. Margaret who is tahred xoxoxox
Mexican Cactus Flower
Would i change anything?? Yes that thalo green in the center. Too green. Havent used thalo green in years for that readon. Why did i use it this time?? Thalo blue and aureolin yellow makes Thalo green. Duh.
The correct color
I actually took this out on our wet back deck to photograph when the rain let up. You get more accurate color photos on an over cast day or so they say. The great debate was on as to whether it was done. I decided it was.
Nature does not hurry and yet everything is accomplished. (Lao Tzu) is the theme of this painting.
Margaret xoxoxox who had enough excitemnt for today. Lol.
Done done done
I added a lot of darks to it and used a gel pen to add more whites. Gotta love a gel pen. The quinacridones had smeared when I removed the masking fluid from the stamens. Tried gouache. Of course that didn’t work. So the white pentel gel pen came to the rescue.
Margaret tired once again. Good tired though. I have how many left to do??Xoxoxoxo
Pepes
Oldest eating establishment in Key West is their Moniker.
Margaret xoxoxox who needs to do a whole series of Key West quirky places.
This place serves the most awesome coconut pie you will ever eat. I ran across this sketch when I was looking for photos of Chrystalline creative in my superaquabee sketchbook and really like it a lot so thought I should publish it.
Pepe’s Coconut Cream Pie
Crust:
1 1/2 C Graham Crumbs
1/4 C Sugar
6 T Butter melted
Stir all together and press in 9-10″ pie pan
Filling
3 Egg Yolks
2 t Coconut Extract
1/2 C Sugar
3 Heaping T cornstarch
3 C Half and Half
1 C Flaked and Sweetened Coconut
1/2 C Heavy Cream
mix yolks and extract, set aside.
Combine sugar, cornstarch , half and half in heavy sauce pan over medium high. Bring to boil stirring constantly.
The recipe for Pepes Coconut Pie.
Pepe’s Coconut Cream Pie
Crust:
1 1/2 C Graham Crumbs
1/4 C Sugar
6 T Butter melted
Stir all together and press in 9-10″ pie pan
Filling
3 Egg Yolks
2 t Coconut Extract
1/2 C Sugar
3 Heaping T cornstarch
3 C Half and Half
1 C Flaked and Sweetened Coconut
1/2 C Heavy Cream
mix yolks and extract, set aside.
Combine sugar, cornstarch , half and half in heavy sauce pan over medium high. Bring to boil stirring constantly.
When it starts to bubble and 1/2 C of mixture to eggs very slowly to temper them. Return all to the saucepan whisking constantly over medium low. When the sauce is thick and coats the back of a spoon remove from heat and stir in coconut. Cool to room temperature and turn into the crust. Chill for 2 hours. Whip cream (1/2 T powdered sugar) and spoon over pie.
Mark Making!!
20×22” Arches cold press 300#
May be a wip aka a work in progress.
First layer watercolor. Lots of yellow and green ultramarine. Slinging paint with the sword brush. What fun.
Adding some darks. More paint slinging.
Waiting for some purple and blue pastels to show up from Amazon because I really didn’t have the any good purples or blues.
Tweet Tweet Twice the Fun
Thanks for looking.
Margaret xoxoxo
Field of flowers
You know one of the things That is a good side effect of the pandemic is all the zoom classes with famous artists that you could never afford to take from in person. And no travel. Do it at your favorite painting table. A win win if there is one in this hideous pandemic.
Today I took a class with Keiko Tanabe on shopkeeparty.com. she just zips along. This class went alot better than thenlast one I took with her so I may do another.
Quitting now. I worked on my sky a bit. And splattered a lot with white gouache, cad yw, opera, and some Joe’s Andrew’s Turquoise. Softened a few edges. Lightened a few spots that had gotten too wet to paint the bushes on and gone dark. 
The photo
Will try again with a different building on Hahnamuhle rough instead of Kilimanjaro cold press. Let’s see how it does.
The sketch. Not much to it is there?! Kilimanjaro 300# cold press.
First wash. Dry brushing once I remembered to. Oops. Scratching in the field a bit. And splattering the green to simulate followers. The sky omg. Puffballs. Eek.
Progress. Using my cheap Joe’s Scroggys loose goosy, a kind of saber brush, to paint the flowers – all those lines. It also makes great hair, branches and sometimes telephone lines.
Adding details and darks. Trees and bushes. It was still to wet to do a lot of these but I plowed on chasing Keiko.
NEVER drink espresso Before Doing phone lines. Wobbly lines. Sigh.
Finally remembered how to dry brush trees. Added some neutral tint and some yellow ochre and alizarin to the sky. More cobalt too.
Thought it was done. But eeek. That hard edge under the house bushes. Had to wipe them out some.
And done.
If you are interested in taking online classes. Shopkeeparty.com offers all kinds of art classes twice a week. Every Tues am there’s a one hour one that is free to the public on YouTube. There’s also an extensive backlog of videos on YouTube all free for the watching on Shopkeeparty. John Harrison who runs it has been doing these for a year now. Another COVID benefit. He’s in England. His artists are all over the world.
Margaret xoxoxox who should sell some art to pay for the expensive sliding door that’s getting g replaced. Salesman coming today. Eeekk.
Day 195 Out the Window
I should add an egret cruising in to this drawing. There are at least 100 egrets cruising in now to roost under the windows in the trees that I didn’t draw in this sketch.
Micro uniball stillman and birn Alpha
Trying to remember to do a focal point while u sketch and let the rest go as background and foreground is not easy. I tried.
Of course the egrets are on the side of the trees away from the house so u can just see a dab of white here and there. Truly there are at least 100. I just saw 25 land in quick succession. Then they sit in the trees and clack and growl at each other most of the night. Also a few wood storks cruising by. Hard to tell if they are roosting. There. 
And a youngster or two. No sun tonite or I was going to drive around the lagoon and look at them. 
Maybe tomorrow evening if it’s sunny. I took this one thru the screen on my rooms cute little porch. Did I say it needs a rocker or two?!
Spent the morning at the Serpentatium. Always interesting.
Margaret putting her feet up for the day. Xoxoxox
Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art 