But NO I promised I would bake a chocolate pound cake for book club which is today not next Tuesday. Did I say I used up all the eggs yesterday duh. So off to the store. I always end up with a few cupcakes because my pan is only ten cups and the recipe is for a 12 cup pan. A delicious side benefit right?!
Margaret who will post the cake tomorrow after it’s out of the oven. The hubby pronounced those cupcakes perfect. Almost like a cheesecake.
Xoxoxoxo
Margaret show has to get busy drawing for Watercolor Live today. xoxoxox
Oldest eating establishment in Key West is their Moniker.
Margaret xoxoxox who needs to do a whole series of Key West quirky places.
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.
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.
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.
Got a little carried away painting daffodils yesterday over and over and over. Wanted soft edges and kept getting hard ones. I used up a half sheet of 300# Kilimanjaro painting these.
They range in size from 10×10″ to about 7×7″.
Some have salt added to them which gives the speckled look.
You can still see salt on this one. Oops.
After lunch I forgot the salt and splattered them. Oops
Cad yellow light, Indian yellow, Daniel smith sodalite and green apetite, quin magenta and sap green. Oh and some Daniel Smith gold and opalescent blue.
I also added salt to three of them. Wish I remembered to do it to the last two.
Margaret xoxoxo
Two paintings in one day and a nice long nap on the sofa when I finished. 
I painted and drew from 9 am to almost 5! Guess my artistic block is over. Amazing how a vaccine takes the pressure off! Hope you get yours soon.
The drawing. 300 # cold press Kilimanjaro. Nice paper! Masking fluid was added to reserve the white of the whiskers.
Off to a wild start with Liz Chadderton. You too can paint a cute Easter bunny. She makes her animal paintings look so easy but let me tell you they aren’t. My paper kept drying out making hard edges. Sigh.
Almost done. This only took 40 minutes and about forty years of practicing. Only 3 colors used. French ultramarine, burnt sienna or burnt umber and opera pink. Masking fluid on the whiskers.
So I added some more dark grey to separate the ears from the sweet face.And that’s a wrap. Back to my nap. 😴 Margaret xoxoxo
Took an online live class with Ian Fenelly. I have long wanted to take a class with him but never been where he was teaching. I have to say with ten years of public school teaching under his belt he’s an excellent organized teacher.
There are some pluses to the pandemic. If you haven’t tried one or two you should. shopkeeparty.com offers something for everyone. 
The photo Winsor Castle.
Starting the sketch with light grey tomboy pens on hot press fluid paper. A half sheet size.
Since Tombows are water soluble it is a great idea to use permanent markers on it to show details. The idea is to make an exaggerated perspective using some lines that are square but most not.
Watercolor layer done. Quin gold, Thalo blue, burnt sienna and andrews turquoise.
The markers and some of the paint brushes.
Adding details with the grey tombows. It was getting a lot of fun to do at this point. The fact that it did not all have to be exactly in perspective was freeing. Who cares if a line wobbles here and there. That’s part of the fun. 
I added a lot of cross hatching per Ians direction. Done for now. Now it’s time to look at it for a while.
The bit of sky was added because I had some grey mess of Tombow that I couldn’t cover up any other way.
I recommend a class on Shopkeeparty.com. Thursday Keiko Tanabe is teaching. Will be scratching her off my bucket list come Friday. And next week Liz Chaderton is doing a very fun otter class. Once a week they offer a free one hour demo paint along on Tuesdays. I meant to do the otter with Liz today but got up too late. No sleep last nite. Might try it tomorrow when it’s on YouTube.
Margaret ready to put Her feet up and stare at her painting for a while. Xoxoxox
I like to draw random people when I am out and about. Get bored sitting in a class or in talk and then I draw the people I can see nearby but I don’t want them to see me drawing them. Thus undercover spying.
Spent the day going thru old photos of random people and tossing them into recycle. Or terrible print outed photos. They look blurry. Who needs them when they are on your iPad available for painting or running a slide show?!
Probably should paint them. Found my tiny whiskey painters box today when I was cleaning. Hurrah!!
Hahnamuhle journal with no idea of what pen. Probably a Lamy EF loaded with eel skin ink. Lettering done with my namiki fude today.
Margaret xoxoxox
The view from our lunch table at Taqueria de Sol on W Ponce yesterday. Thought my fingers were going to freeze off.
My favorite hamburger joint the original Farmburgers and Chai Pani Indian Street food the home of blistered tongues from their hot food. Give me a farmburger please. Sooo good.
Stillman and Birn Alpha and Micro univalve. Meant to post yesterday but was too busy watching the election returns. Swore I wouldn’t but oh well. Now I needs a nap.
Margaret still listening on NPR. Xoxoxo
Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art 