Day 563 – Auvers sur L’Oise or How to make a Map!

January 16, 2016January 17, 20162 Comments

Auvers is a small French village best known as the town for Vincent Van Gogh spending the last summer of his life here. He also painted 70 paintings in the 90 or so days he was there.

A short bus ride from Paris Auvers is a part of France that has been preserved as a historic area. It can never be changed. No new buildings can be added so it’s like a walk thru Van Gogh’s last days.

Vincent’s room is still there in the Aubeege Ravoux. A tiny room in the attic what the British call a box room.

Auvers Hotel de Ville July 14 1890 (The Town Hall, Bastille Day, the French Independence Day)

You can look out the window and see the Hotel de Ville which of course he painted. It still has the flags across the second floor Windows.

Turn right out of the Auberge and walk up Rue de Sausonne. The lane the stone gate the steps and the house are still there. The only thing that changes are the trees.

Climb the steps and walk down Daubigny to the Eglise Notre Dame de l’Assomption.

Turn left, walk up the hill to the famous wheat field.

Another right front the field will take you to the Cemetary where he is buried with his brother Theo.

A lovely little village. I was just sad I could not draw one sketch while I was there. zip zip zip we ran up and down the hilly river town.

Auvers je reviens!!

Oh before I close. How do I do these. Usually I start with a rough sketch of the route walked penciling in buildings I want to include.

Then I draw it out as I want it to be. I also make a mental list of embellishments for it. People or in this case sunflowers and crows and Van Goghs paintings.

Pencil sketch.

Inked map.

Thanks for reading. Off to draw in Aiken aka I am running late doing this post.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 508 – A Few Ibis

December 1, 2015December 1, 2015Leave a comment

I counted at least eight sketches of ibis that I drew at the Key West Wildlife Center.

The ibis were painted with cerulean and piemonite. Makes a lovely purply color. The beaks are cad red and Winsor yellow. The legs the same with more Quin red added to it.

The leaves are viridian Inathradone blue and Quin cold. And the ground. Any color I could use to give it texture.

Go find an ibis. Great fun to draw.

Back to my cold. Thanks for reading

Margaret xxx

Day 431 – Sketching Tybee

September 15, 20157 Comments

We packed up and left the house about ten am. The kids were off to Atlanta and it was SkEtcH TIME!!

These will all be watercolored soon but in the meantime I am sharing the sketches. I did eight total yesterday. A lot of painting soon.

If you want to draw this feel free. Shrimp boat photos are hard to come by.
I found the perfect spot on a fishing dock when you first come one the island across from Fort Pulaski. The fisherman had to check out what I was doing.
So I drew him after he checked out my sketches. Think I better straighten up that bucket. Oops!!

I switched to Lamy fine with this one. My noodles Konrad ran out of ink and my ahab was leaking. Guess I am going to have to fix it. 😳 That said I really liked the sketchiness of the fine line the Lamy does.

Not the best pelican I have ever drawn but he will look better when he’s got some color on him.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 411 -A Pelican

August 24, 201513 Comments

I drew this brown pelican when I was at the Key West Wildlife Center with my brush pen. Finally got around to painting him. If you wonder why he was at the center I noticed while sketching he was missing the upper bill. For lack of a way to exlain it better the part under where your nose would be. I noticed because I saw his tongue while I was drawing him. He was above my eye level.

Here is another pic oh him if you want to draw him. See the slit in his bill? The reason he lives at the center.
Since I drew this I have thought a lot about these poor birds doomed to live in cages forever because we polluted their world. Fishing line or a fish hook likely got his bill. Saddens me to thin that he will never get to soar on the currents or dive bomb for fish like he was supposed to do. Now he lives in a cage with another pelican.

All I am going to say is DONT throw ur trash in the water.

Colors used: Quin gold, cerulean, burnt sienna, and every blue I own for the water plus a little spring green and purple.
Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 410 – More of those chickens!!

August 23, 2015August 23, 20159 Comments

Courthouse Chickens Key West

Where else but in Key West would you find chickens at the courthouse?!

I drew these toward the end of our stay in Key West when I went on a sketchathon starting at the Key West Wildlife Center and ending at Higgs Beach sketching the people as they walked by in front of the car.

Fast sketching requires a good flowing pen – chickens birds and people don’t hold still for long!! I use my Noodler Craper Ahab or one of my two brush pens – the Kuretake or the Pentel. The first two are always loaded with Carbon Platinum Black ink which dries so rapidly. I frequently paint them later especially if the weather is extreme like in the tropical heat of key west.

I thought you might like to see the chickens before I painted them.

While in Key west I saw a lot of Chinese style brush work paintings of animals in one gallery on Duval. And decided to try it out on the long chicken strip. I liked it so much I did it on these pages too.

There are really only a few pure colors used on the chickens. Quin gold, Quin Sienna, Quin burnt orange, Inathradone, Quin red and alizarin period. All the colors were allowed to combine on the page. Painting was done with my large cheap joes legend #12 sable even the large splatters.

Tip: To make the splatters. Choose a color or two and make a soupy mix. Fillup a large brush and gently tap over the painting. Yes I have a toothbrush but I always get little splatters not big juicy ones with it.

Probably due to heat stroke I was imagining what the chickens might be thinking as I drew. What would I think if I were a courthouse chicken?! Look there goes another felon?! Wonder what they did?! Hope I win my case?!

Before I started drawing chickens I thought roosters were mean ready to attack you at any second like the ones we had as kids. When get are with the chicks and be a they are very different beasts. They are not aggressive. Feed them and they defer to the babies and hens to eat. They also stand vigil while the hen takes care of the babies. Who knew??!

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 393 Endless Ibis

August 7, 2015Leave a comment

How many can you draw? Evidently I can draw a lot of them!!

Here’s a couple more. Did I say I have a lot of Ibis?!

The first three were quite involved sketches. Then I ran out of background ideas!! Oops. More morrow.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 392 – A Few Ibis

August 5, 20157 Comments

Three times is the charm they say! Wordpress keeps eating my post today. These were all drawn on site at the Key West Wildlife center. I counted at least 8-10 pages of ibis sketches.

Stay tuned tomorrow for painting details. Want to be sure WordPress behaves before I write one more long post.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 389 Drawing Duval Street

August 1, 20152 Comments

Duval Street – $150 app 8×40″ Heavy Stonehenge paper

I actually drew this one after I drew the chickens. I was so hot I sat in the Starbucks on Duval drawing passersby.

I tried to give them a tropical feel. Crowds on Duval do not look like an Atlanta crowd or the denizens of my favorite cafe Inner Bean or customers running into Earthfare.

Tank tops tshirts short shorts sunglasses and flip flops are the order of the day. Chickens use the crosswalks and palms line the road.

I tried to use bright tropical colors to give a tropical feel to this long strip.

It was not the best vantage point to see people to sketch quickly. They went by TOO quickly. Mere seconds.
TIP: This was drawn with a Pentel brush pen. I actually have two brush pens because drawing these strips use up the ink. Hate to run out while drawing a strip.

I generally start with the shoulders and next the head.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret ️xxx

Day 388 and then there were more chickens!!!

July 31, 20152 Comments

Key West Post office chickens. $150 app 8x 40″

Sorry about the cropping. My iPhone refused to let me crop it closer.

These were drawn at the post office while I sat on the steps of a lawyers office. The chicks got really friendly. But the two roosters were vigilant as usual!

I tried to paint them loosely with a large paint brush a #12 Cheap Joes Legend.

I also tried to let the colors blend on the page unless I did some negative painting. When I do negative painting I usually paint the light color and let it dry. Then I add the darker colors.

Colors used burnt sienna and Quin gold. Cad red and vermilion for the comb. Inathradone blue and viridian green for the tails. Burnt umber added to make a black.

The chicks were painted with Winsor yellow Quin gold burnt sienna and burnt umber.

A dab of white gel pen on the eyes for sparkle.

I splattered its with Inathradone and burnt umber.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret ️xxx

Day 387 – too many chickens

July 31, 20152 Comments

I may be growing tired of painting Key West chickens. I painted quite a few today. All of them were painted wet on wet.

Thought we all needed a joke on Thursday. This is actually one of the court house chickens I drew while walking around one afternoon. There are more courthouse and post office chickens and wild life center chickens. Too many chickens lol.

Here’s another court house chicken who was near a homeless guy who was laying in the sidewalk on Whitehead enjoyingy the shade of a palm tree.