Notice how this painting started as a gesture sketch after I measured.
So did this one. In Two minutes gesture is about all you can do.
More from Notre Dame de Paris. Dancers. 
Esmeralda
An assortment of characters. Done with Prismacolor paint sticks on printer paper. 
Quasimodo.
Off to class. Make some Gesture sketches! Crowds are good places to start them. Or lines. Or the crowds going into and out of grocery stores. Just a few lines all that’s required.
Margaret xoxoxo
A gesture sketch is done looking at a person usually but I got annoyed with the way mine are going and decided to draw the dogs with gestures.
I think I drew these Tuesday and they were great practice for Dr Sketchys. Here are the rest of them. I really want to draw dancers this way. 
Esmeralda is the top left. Quasimodo, Frollo, and Esmeralda bottom right and left.
These were all drawn while I was watching Notre Dame de Paris on YouTube. A lot of dramatic gestures good for drawing.
So how do you draw a gesture sketch!? I used a brush pen on these. No drag! It lets you draw quickly. Gesture sketches are quick – a few lines to capture the gesture. 
Why practice gesture sketches so you can mail sketches at Dr Sketchys or when you are out and about drawing people on the go. It really does help. 
Here’s a pile of them.
The first one I did. Eekkk.
Dancers well NO. But they were suppose to be.
More dancers. Not the greatest but better.
And a few more dancers. I like these better today than when I drew them. The feet kept disappearing when I froze tyhe video to draw the dancers or they zipped off into artistic shadows. Visually great to look at but makes drawing HARD!!
Go try it. A lot of fun.
Margaret already in her flannel jammies for this cold winter weather. Well cold by Georgia standards. 52!! 😱
Part 2 Dr Sketchys. I did more than a dozen sketches Wednesday nite. 
And met friends for a delicious dinner at Bees Knees before. Avocado chop chop. Who knew a baked avocado could be So delicious. Loaded with crab. I really must draw one. And the rainbow trout perfection. All the while we sat in a store display window eating all this deliciousness.
Going to have to go back and snap some pics when the bar is full. Love this shot it just needs people. 
More jujitau sketches. This one was five minutes I think.
Hmm his head is too small I think. Hard to tell now with no reference pic.
We were suppose to add a monkey to this contest sketch but darn I forgot. Too busy drawing and painting.
Not bad but head is off. Ilaina really is a gorgeous woman inside and out. Doesn’t do her justice.
The best of three attempts. Body is good but face too cute.
Chin too long. Legs too short. As I told Rachel I peaked too early. Lol.
And oh my – legs ridiculously short. Actually head doesn’t look bad. The vagaries of fast sketching.
Another contest sketch. I will actually be selling this one at Wet Paint an auction for Greater Augusta Arts Council Feb 18. Funny while sketching it I realized that I had no idea what an ak 47 or a kolishnikof looks like. I don’t even know how to spell the later. lol.
Busy day. Ttyl
Margaret who needs to shed Her cat and dog blanket and get dressed. Xoxoxo
Happy Birthday to my Mother. What an amazing age.
Painted using Ted Nuttalls transparent watercolors.
A bientôt!
Yoga time!!
Margaret xoxoxo
Right foot left foot.
Contour drawing. Well supposedly.
I tried not to peak at my foot but that’s so hard. Maybe I will try again after my painting class this afternoon.
I had to color this coloring book like page. COULD NOT give up color once we started!!
L-R Noodler Konrad, Lamy Safari, Pentel Brush Pen, Carbon Pen.
Done with four different pens but I had to color my coloring book page with. Prismacolor art sticks.
Ttyl time for class. Getting ready for TWO shows. What was I thinking.
Margaret xoxoxo
Despite the deluges yesterday a large crowd turned out. It was a rainbow kind of crowd – old and young, men and women, LGBT and even a few dogs.
I drew these yesterday on a very wet day in downtown Augusta. The March and the speeches were at historic Springfield Park where Morehouse College started at Springfield Baptist across the street.
The flame like sculpture on the rampart is all a part of the park. I did paint these at home. I didn’t think watercolor would work too well in deluge weather. Besides there was nowhere to put anything down because it POURED all morning too.
A second even faster sketch of the happy crowd of raincoats and galoshes. I think the correct number of marches was actually 671 but the speakers said 370 and 20 countries.
The sketches were done in my Stillman and Birn Zeta mixed Media with my very patriotic Red Noodler Konrad. I added the flags and the signs to give more interest to the sketches.
Notice the big raindrop blotches on the ink?! Oops. Bravely I kept on sketching standing on top of a bench for a better view.
Here’s the first sketch and a picture of the crowd and park. The local news reported 600 people were there. I think there were closer to 1000. Guess it’s impossible to count.
Somebody asked me how I drew these. The only thing I can say is start at the front and fill in the crowd moving back or you won’t have room for the people in the foreground.
You can not draw a counter in a restaurant and then add people. You have to do it people first then the counter or pencil in the counter which I rarely do. Sometimes it gets me into trouble when I forget the order :
People first background last!
Happy sketching.
Margaret madly painting black edges on canvases for her show at 4p in February. Xoxoxo and yes it’s still raining.
When you live on a river you see a lot skies. Sunrises sunsets and
wild storms blowing in from the west across Georgia and the Savannah River.
Because it was a stormy sky I used a lot of marks to make it hopefully seem stormier.
These are done with Prismacolor art sticks and colored pencils in my Stillman and Birn Zeta Mixed Media Journal. Lines and lettering with the Lamy Safari I think or the EF.
Ttyl Margaret xoxox
Today’s assignment was draw a coloring book page with a marker and color it. Done!! Don’t forget you can copy your coloring book page and color it in lots of different ways.
Still trying to use the wild fauvist colors. Drawn with my black tombow pen in my Stillman and Birn Zeta.
Ps don’t know why I didn’t think about this but copying the coloring book page before you color r it you could also share it with your favorite short people like my grandson and niece who are four and five and LOVE to color. What better than their own coloring sheet made by their favorite artist?
Ttyl
Margaret xoxoxo
And a little more Fauvism
What we jokingly call a jacaranda when we head to key West. The trail on the Sunshine Parkway to Key West and we try to entertain ourselves. One way is the first jacaranda sightings which we usually spot south of Orlando.
The Tale of the Jacaranda
Now why do we call Norfolk Pines Jacarandas? My first trip to Key West I sent a picture of a very tall thin tree to a friend who grew up in Florida. She told me it was a Jacaranda even though we thought it was a Norfolk Pine. I finally looked it up and yes it’s a Norfolk Pine. They grow fifty or more feet tall in southern Florida. Straight up like a cornstalk.
But that’s southern Florida for you. Every house plant we have grows to enormous size. Our house plants are their outside foundation plants. Pothos and philodendrons have leaves bigger than dinner plates and grow stories tall just like the Jacaranda Pine tree.
Stillman and Birn mixed media Zeta Ted Nuttals transparent colors. My small Isabey mop. Well mostly.
Yesterday after I bough the sunflowers I remembered that Earthfare sold some gorgeous red radishes with lots of green leaves. So I made an extra trip 8 miles up the street and got a bunch. $2.99 ouch. Cheaper than flowers though.
Once again we were to use as many cooors as we could to draw these after drawing the first one in the colors the object is. I was lazy and left them on the plastic bag.
Number 1. Fun but I like the other one better.
And all the colors I used.
Color always excites me. The more the better. The reason I took this class. 
This week in sketchbookskool drawing a day class we are finally using color. All 96 crayons. And Prismacolor pencils and a few pens.
The challenge today was to draw flowers two ways. One the normal way and one in a fauvist style using as many crayons as possible. See below for all the crayons I used!!
Fauvist is an early 20th century movement lead by Matisse that grew out of Impressionism. It means wild beast because the pictures have colors where you would never find them in nature.
This was drawn by drawing a bit then changing to another color.
Of the two it’s my favorite.
Here’s the first sketch drawn using the color the sunflowers and the case truly are. Much more boring than the first one don’t you think?! Try it!! Grab any crayon and draw a bit grab another and keep going. You can be a wild beast too.
All the crayons. 😱
You will find one or two will Judy not show up on the paper.
This is yesterday’s homework mark making in color. Instructions were to fill up a page with marks only.
I used just a handful of colored pencils and a couple of markers. This took about an hour believe it or not. Fun to do.
Prismacolor pencils are the best. If U don’t have some go get some. Michaels half price coupon.
Bytw don’t drop them. They break inside the wood and become hard to sharpen. Ask me how I know? !!
Here’s what I used.
Thanks for reading. More color fun tomorrow.
Margaret xoxoxo
Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art 