Day 1007 All About the Raisin or is it Horses!?

April 24, 2017Leave a comment

If this painting of Raisin looks familiar it is. I started her last summer. I had also started a large watercolor earlier of the same photo when Al coopted it for an acrylic for school. He didn’t like the other photo I suggested.

Then she hung around the Aiken art studio waiting to have a few problems resolved like the upper corner and th iPhone.

Before you think I am obsessing over my friend Raisin the third photo is a study for the large full sheet watercolor and I really want to finish it after spending all day sketching it.

I decided to add the horse her Freisian Harley when I was taking Peggi Habits class in Charlotte and make the painting the Raisin story. She loves to ride and she loves her Freisian Harley.

I am meeting Harley soon but used a photo of a Freisian I took at the flat track races last month. Friesians are all big black and just gorgeous. Fairy tale horses with big curly manes and tails.

Here’s what it looked like before the gesso!!

I gessoed out the whole upper left -the picture frame and the iPhone that was in her hand in the original photo.

Then Al dissed the horse idea. WHAT?!! Too late. The gesso had done its work.

The photo from our Knoxville painting trip.

Here’s the watercolor study. The Freisian is too small. Bigger next time. It’s about 10×15″ Why do big?

I swore I would never do another tiny horse after doing this one last month. He may look great but he took HOURS ago do. Way too long for an 8×10″ painting.

What u say next time?! Still have that big watercolor to do. I only spent most of a day drawing it. And I AM going to paint it. Third times the charm right?!

Margaret whose hungry and going to eat.

Ttyl xoxoxo

Day 985 Some Rachel time

April 3, 2017Leave a comment

A good way to start a Monday!

This ones a little busy but it was a busy day on Thursday. For that matter so was Friday.

Oddly I noticed Rachel looks a little tired in this sketch. If I hadn’t deleted it I would go back and look at it to see if she was. Those kinds of things turn up in sketches even if you don’t notice them while you are watching.

I actually think I might like this better unpainted. Oh well. As you can tell the news continues to astound me. The spy novel keeps building and building.

As Chuck Lorre posted after Big Bang “our best hope to save the day is an eighty year old slab of beef jerky from Arizona(McCain) and his trusty sidekick Scarlett O’Hara(Lindsey Graham)!!

Off to bed. Ttyl.

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 984 Alex and Willie

April 2, 2017April 2, 2017Leave a comment

Every Sunday I watch CBS SUnday Morning. My fav bits on it are the partsabout artists or singers people stuff. And this show is crammed with them. Alex was on this am talking about his 45 impersonations. Hard to resist sketching him. He morphed into 45. The mans definitely making me political!!

The background was Quin gold but not enough contrast w the head. Like the orange one better. After all he is the Orange One”

Have always loved Willie and meant to just draw him. He just popped onto the page. What’s not to love about an 84 year old who says “we woke up and we are still not dead!”??

Think they are done. Maybe. Trying to resist the urge to scribble on them in the background with a soft dark pencils. So many quotable quotes from them both.

Painted on 280# Arches Cold Press with Ted Nuttalls transparent palette plus cerulean, hematite and cheap Joes Andrews Turquoise. Pen pentel brush pen.

Ttyl Going to try my hand at horses today.

Margaret taking a walk in the park today too.

Day 982 Last Nite!

March 30, 20172 Comments

After several disastrous sketches I knew I could handle our beautiful Asian model when I did this watercolor in ten minutes or so.

All sketches are 11×14 in a Super Aquabee tablet. Love that paper. Painted with my whisky painter box loaded with WN and Daniel Smith Quin coral and an old Cotman palette loaded with every quinacridone I own plus thalo blue and green black and white gouache. Painted with a pentel waterbrush.

These are all two minute sketches. Some of these will probably be altered. And most are pretty awful. As in EEEKKK I Don’t feel good and I can’t draw a thing tonite. This one was the worst.

Better. I decided to give up my go to Dr Sketchys pen the Pentel Brush pen and use a Noodler Konrad. Life improved. I always think it’s interesting how a change of pen can improve your drawing skills when they aren’t going well.

Next We had a challenge to turn her into a fox. Evidently her stage name is Foxy. As some of you know I like to draw chickens. Follow them around at Key West to draw them or sit and watch them and sketch them. Never thought chickens could be so much fun but they are.

Really like the sketchiness of her body and legs in this one.

Ttyl another busy day. Haircut picking up paintings and back to aiken for a reception for a friends show.

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 965 141 People in one Week

March 12, 2017March 12, 2017Leave a comment

Well I made it. Added another another 14 people yesterday when we were at the Standardbred Harness Races yesterday at McGhees Mile Track in Aiken. Starting from the last one draw to the first one drawn at the end of the post. I am going to paint some of these today I think since this is day 7.

Flipagram of the sketches.

All of them are drawn with my Lamy safari in Lexington Grey ink in my Stillman and Birn Alpha. Most were drawn from real life except the 20 or so talking heads.

In the window at the Mexican cafe on Laurens street in Aiken.

At the races. I was afraid to shop out my sketchbook after I did this because a certain bird was busy telling people what a great sketched I was.

Off MSNBC Friday nite. ditto that

Hanging the new Augusta State University logo sign at the Dental School Friday. These guys were working hard. Two guys only but they hardly stood still pushing and shoving the big scaffold that would take them to the top of the four story building.

More of the two guys. One worked continually nonstop the whole hour or so I was drawing. Pulling and pushin. And backing the truck up.

Contour drawings because they were moving fast. The angles they got on their bodies were as good as any dancer or yoga as they pushed and shoved the heavy scaffold.

In line waiting at chic fil a and the dental school check in.

Too right luck at chic Fil a and a guy waiting to see the dentist at the college.

A three generation family at chic Fil a

More tv talking heads.

My heroine Rachel Maddow. So brilliant.

Talking heads MSNBC especially like the Bernie Head.

Lawrence O’Donnell taking heads. Love him too.

Rachel Maddow and her talking heads

Panera sketches Tuesday

Panera Tuesday

Panera Tuesday the rest are at Panera Monday and a few more talking. Heads from MSNBC.

Heads on Morning Joe.

As I said will paint some of these. I love having my own coloring book. Total people. Depends on how you count them. 141 if I count all the contour drawings at the Dental College and in the crowd at the races.

Ttyl

Margaret who has to paint. Xoxoxo

Day 964 100 people in seven days Day SIX

March 11, 2017March 11, 2017Leave a comment

Time to finish up those 100 people. In the meantime there’s always the tv to draw from.

I am completely absorbed by the unfolding spy whodunnit on Eachel Maddow every nite on MSNBC. I even take notes and draw some of the talking heads or players in this dramatic story. Last nite it was General Flynn who was working for the Turkish government to the tune of $500000 while he was head of our National Security.

I don’t think Robert Ludlum or John Le Carre could make this stuff up. Just crazy stuff going on.

And yesterday ALL the holdover Obama attorneys were fired and told to clear out by close of business. Usually they stay to finish up their cases and then leave. Not this time. And Hannity a tv talking head seems to have precipitated it. Hmmm.

The double page spread. Still have to find one more head to draw.

Colors used. Quin coral and gold and burnt orange. Burnt umber and ultramarine and cerulean. A dab of orange.

Ttyl off to the flat track horse races in Aiken. No nekkid painting today. Going to miss my painting peeps.

Margaret xoxoxo who hopes it’s not freezing cold out today.

Day 942 Sacred Heart

February 16, 2017Leave a comment

I never get tired of trying to draw it and paint it. My fav building in Augusta. I think I got it this time.

It’s an old deconsecrated Catholic Church downtown on Greene Street. I used to take Spanish from the nuns in the school to the read of the church as a third and fourth grader. My mom thought it was how we needed to spend our Saturdays. Asks me if I speak Spanish. Nope!!

Colors used. Piemonite, cerulean, ultramarine blue, Quin burnt orange, burnt umber, Quin gold, vermilion, green appetite, sap green.

Drawn w my Lamy EF in a stillman and Birn Alpha. Paper will dry flat but it’s a little wavy now.

More to paint.

Xoxoxo

Margaret

Day 941 A few more als and that urban sketch

February 15, 2017Leave a comment

Sketched at the Aiken Brewing Company on Laurens St downtown Aiken

Colors used Quin gold Quin red orange cerulean, burnt umber, ultramarine, hookers and a gel pen or two.

Draw with a Lamy Safari and Lexington Grey ink in a Stillman and Birn Zeta.

Als painting of a student circus 1990. Even then he was trying to paint like Vermeer.

Als friend from the gym who loved to tell stories. He was a rower in the 52 and 56 Olympics for Hungary.

Al after his heart attack. He used his computer camera to take this photo.

The models make Al look like a great painter so he says but we know he’s a great painter.

Ilaina gorgeous as ever. A Saturday painting. 3×4′

Als office. Always neat. Painted with acrylic. Much wilder than his oil paintings. LOVE This one. Think it got a certificate of merit at the State Fair.

Als an awesome painter and teacher the reason. I drove 60 miles three times a week to Aiken to become a better painter I HOPE!!

Xoxoxo

Margaret

Day 937 Its Saturday

February 11, 2017February 11, 2017Leave a comment

Sarah 24×30″ Acrylic alla prima.

Her last modeling session before she moves to Los Angelos this week. We will miss her. She had such a sweet pensive look today. Maybe she was thinking about her big move. LA is a long way from Augusta Ga.

The painting. Was done in an hour or so. I liked it when I left. Now I am not so sure but that’s life isn’t it?! Took a while and several restarts to decide how to paint her but after that it was easy. I turned the panel one way and then the other. Finally painted her vertically.

She was in such a nice position with her legs extend I wished I had a big square to paint her on but oh well only a rectangle.

Colors used titanium white pyrrole red and nickel azo gold for skin. Highlights are primary yellow mixed with the skin color. Shadows are Winsor purple added to the same mix.

I used some thalo blue and that’s all the colors.

Here she is at first break. Forty minutes.

Last session I drew this large ink drawing of Sarah on a piece of mat board. It’s Sarah’s goodby present. Took about 15 minutes.

Oops I forgot her hand and left leg. Oh well.

Drawn with my Pentel brush pen and I bled the ink with a wet Winsor Newton flat fake mongoose brush for shading.

It was a big crowd today. People were even sitting on the floor. Oh it’s good to be young. They were rewarded with Happy buttons for their floor positions.