Category: Daily drawing

Day 306 -Reportage?!

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Happy Mothers Day. 

Last nite we went to the annual Pops under the Stars with the Augusta Symphony. I drew about thirty pages and half an accordion book. It was a lot of fun and felt like I really was in the groove. Pages of sketches of the conductor. They are so energetic. Just wish we were closer to see Maestro Z better. 

So here is part of what I drew. Can’t wait to slap some paint on these. 

   Sketching the orchestra warming up!! 

Maestro Z 

The conductor was very energetic!!  

Sketching the orchestra warming up and some of the crowd. 

  More Sketching the orchestra warming up

  Henry loved it. His first fireworks and he thought they were amazing. 

  One of my favorite sketches. Lee Anne.  
The crowd nearby. 

More later. Gotta run. Mothers Day company coming!! 
Thanks for reading!! 

Margaret XXX

Day 304 Homeward bound

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such a great class we were all loathe to leave.  

 Our parting shot – a sign to remember us by. I lettered it. 

  Fealing painted it. 

  
Quick peek in the candy store aka Cheap Joes warehouse. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret  XXX

Day 301 – Feeling Fealing! 

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I actually drew a sketch of her today but it’s back on my table in Cheap Joes studio. Wonderful teacher. So thorough so accessible and so thoughtful.

We started off the day with breakfast at our hotel with 6 or 7 classmates and our lovely teacher Fealing. The day was off to an auspicious start.

Then back to Cheap Joes to work. Mike and I worked till 6. And this is what I did.

The paintings are done in layers of washes.


Ben

Layer 1 should have started at the top and been colors. Blended softly together. Got in a hurry because the teacher called us to class. Pesky bubbles from painting wet into partially drying wet…groan!

Ben

Layer 2 Linking shadows softening edges. 

 
Ben

Layer 2/3 adding more darks softening edges 

  

Ben

Layer 3 Adding more darks and color and trying to keep it soft but focused!! Still more to do but that’s all I have done as of now. Think I am find to lift some of the dark blue on his eye. The beard was done with a wash of cerulean. It was magic the way a beard just popped off the page!! Ultramarine blue and burnt umber In the hair. Keeping the edges soft. 

Boy does his mouth need work…hopefully sooner or later it will work!!

 
The Chinese Man

15×22 300# Stephen Quiller cold press

 I call him Inscrutable. Dads photo album called him “Not Many Left.” This is how he looked this morning.

 

The Chinese Man  

More Layer 3 – I added a lot of darks. Can you find them!? And some reds. Darkened the hands, the eyes.  Added some reds. Killed some of the whites. Added darks to the frog closures on the jacket and under the right collar. Added blue to the hat.

 

 

If  you want to try painting him feel free to save this photo. 

Thanks for reading !!

Margaret XX

Day 300 – 300 Consecutive Days of Drawing and Posting

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The Man from Shanghai.

Based on an old photo of Dads taken in pre WW2 Shanghai. Lots left to do. But I am pleased with him so far .

This is an old photograph from my dad’s Marine Corp album.  He and other Marines aboard the USS Henderson were evacuating Marines from China before WW2 because they knew the Japanese were coming.  The Marines guarded the embassies and consulates. Before returning to Honolulu the ship dropped the Marines off at the Phillipines never realizing that it too would shortly be overrun by the Japanese.

 

 Taking a class from Fealing Lin at Cheap Joes.  The sweetest lady and her paintings are beautiful. Fealing is a great teacher, very thorough, knowledgeable diligent and so talented!

The paintings are done with many layers of glazing. Glazing is sheer  transparent color that allows more layers of the same transparent color on it. She often does three to four layers of colors.

The Man from Shanghai

 Layer 1. This isn’t the best example of a first layer wash because I was in a hurry to finish and painted it out of order.  I should have started at the top and let it drip downward.  I didnt use enough water and I kept going back into the already laid down colors!! OPPPS!!!

 Kenyatta

Layer 1 -This layer is all wet in wet very watery glazes allowed to run down the board and drip. 

Kenyatta

Layer 2- Hard edge on her right cheek and right forehead is a NO NO…another oops!

Kenyatta

Layer 3

 

Kenyatta
This is after layer three but the hair should have been included in layer 3.   Still trying to keep the edges and colors loose. Oh so difficult…at least for me!!

Thanks for reading!!

Maggie XX

Day 299 – Silver Wyandottes 

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  aka chickens. More of the reason I drove across the mountains. Sketching chickens is THE most fun and I highly recommend giving it a go. 

  Silver Wyandottes are interesting looking chickens. With white diamond and a swirl of light feathers streaked with black around their heads. 

 
Stillman and Birn Zeta with a Noodler Conrad Flex loaded with Lexington Grey ink. I am actually not sure if all these chickens were Silver Wyandottes but they are colored like they are. 

  The bottom left chicken was colored with a tombow pen. It’s fun to wet them and see them run. You can lift the colors. I thought it might be a good way to color these oddly colored birds. Actually I think the Tombow was a little strong for these chickens. Next I tried a black and an indigo inktense  pencil. Things were going better. The blue softened the black. I drew a diamond pattern all over the hens bodies. Then I added white gouache after the inktense dried.  The benefit of inktense is that once it dries its permanent and you can paint over it. White gouache was also used around the beaks and heads to eliminate dark grey lines I didn’t want especially on the big chicken on the right.  That defined the face and beak better. The waddles and red bits on the head where colored with watercolor pencils- red yellow and orange! The background is 2 light blue watercolor pencils and a purple one for shadows. White gouache was brushed over the neck feathers to make them look fluffier. 

My gift to you this Sunday is these chicken picture so you can join in the chicken sketching fun. At least these aren’t running anywhere. Have fun and I would love to see what you do with them.  

Don’t forget to draw the silver Wyandotte earlier on this post. 

 

Drawing chickens is like drawing bumpy triangles.  The legs are two sticks with upside down trees on them. 

More park sketches tomorrow. 

Thanks for looking!! 

Maggie XX  
  
    

Day 298 – 70th Anniversary 

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Don’t know if when you sketch you have trials and tribulations like I seem too. Do some of your drawings just not turn out like you planned? That would be me. 

  Drawn while waiting for my parents to arrive with my kuretake brush pen in my Stillman and Birn Zeta this sketch at the Park Grill is one.  Just plain boring and not very attractive. All those huge pine logs are yellow. The chairs were oddly fun the sign thru the windows very interesting but for what ever reason it wasn’t working. It did become the perfect journal page.  

  

Journaling added some interst to it.  At least to me it did. My parent s have been going to this restaurant for 30 plus years and where looking forward to having their 70th anniversary there. Sadly the restaurant had changed from an upscale restaurant with a piano player to screaming blue grass piped music, one inch thick fried bologna sandwiches and “naner pudding” served in pint mason jars. However my expensive grilled trout was delicious.

So how was this picture saved? Not sure it was but at least it’s worth a look. Journaling in the background helped and adding white gel pen anywhere I thought light might hit the furniture and the windows. Crosshatching on the sign made it appear to have shape. 
I think I will stick to drawing chickens and landscapes for a while. 

Thanks for reading! 

Maggie XX

Day 296 – A few Barred Rocks

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you know what those are. Chickens. They were so cute and fluffy. Eating constantly. I drove all the way across the Great Smoky National Park just to draw them. Over a huge mountain.  I may be in love. There’s just something about these chickens that’s so appealing.   

  I hear you shaking your head. I used to do the same thing before I started drawing birds. If the cars were all Lapins fault the chickens are all Roz Stendahl’s fault.  I want to go to the fair and draw more in the fall!!😳

These were actually drawn as the chickens ran around me at the Oconaluftee Farm. I should have drawn them with black or grey ink but for some reason I drew them with De Artrementis Brown in my Noodler standard flex. 

It’s not a good idea to draw in the rain but I did that a lot the week I was in Gatlinburg because it rained almost daily. Thank goodness the ink dries quickly.  

  

They were colored with my Caran d’Ache using the side of the flat end. I decided it was easier and quicker to use them than my watercolors though thinking back I don’t supposed it mattered that much. 

  

I still have two more pages of chickens to color –  silver wyandottes a much shyer chicken that ran any time anyone was near it and even worse to color than the barred rocks. I will probably use my watercolor pencils. But these will take a while to color!! 

  Silver Wyandottes

I also had fun journaling stray thoughts about the chickens as I drew them and later as I colored them. 
Hope you enjoy them as much as I do. I need some chickens. 

Thanks for looking. 

Day 295 – Get Your Inner Jackson Pollock On!!

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  When I ran across one of my favorite card ever the BMW Z 3 in. The Kroger parking lot  I knew I had to draw one more car. I have always convetted this car. And they were made up the road from me in Greer SC. This is painted in  my Stillman and Birn Zeta Staedler pen watercolor and gel pen. Bytw the gel pen hates this paper. Very odd. 

Chose yellow for the background because they are complimentary colors. 

  
Car #1

This is my friend Marsha’s 1995 Corvette also known as Baby. I drew her three times.  Twice before I got her right and a third time just for fun on ledger paper. 

Car #1 is obviously awful but I did find the ledger paper interesting so I fluster it again.  

I have a whole book of ledger paper. Not one of the old gorgeous books that Lapin loves but one from the 70s I think.  Does that make it vintage?!

I have used the paper quite a bit in mixed media and it always gives a fun effect so I thought I would try the corvette on it. After all she’s vintage too. 

  
Car #3

The paper wrinkles.  Strike 1. I thought about mounting it on a piece of illo board and I still might. Hopefully that would flatten it out. It also did not allow for the watercolor to be bright.  The colors are more delicate on ledger paper an effect that I do like. So will I paint some more on ledger paper. More than likely especially if I can find someone to cut the book in half. It’s a tall narrow book. The other problem with it was that it will take forever to fill it. It’s 252 pages long!! 

I did find that the gel pen loved this paper. No idea why but it would go on like butter. It’s not so fond of watercolor papers.  

 
Car #2

This is painted in my Stillman and Birn Zeta. My second attempt. It still has a few problems.  The left bumper is off. It should be square and her read end is too long which is why I drew it the third time. 

Splattering. Be sure to cover your car when you do the background. Mix up soupy cerulean and yellow ochre and sling it at the paper.  Get your inner Jackson Pollock on. So much fun to splatter paint. Just know that it will go everywhere including your phone your ipad and you!

Go forth and look for vintage cars. They are not Ez to find. 

Day 294 – homework 

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I mean cars. Taking a Sketchbookskool class called stretching. This week is Lapins week. 

Lapin loves to do urban sketching drawing food people and cars. He even moved from France to Barcelona because there is such an active urban sketching group in Barcelona. How’s that for dedication!?

 He also likes to paint in old ledger books. Definitely a different look to that paper. More transparent but that’s for tomorrow. 
 

 Stuck getting my Prius first checkup yesterday I drew and painted cars in the dealership. Usually I draw on site and skulk off home to paint at leisure. I used my old Winsor newton field allege and a Cotman pallette I reloaded with all my quinacridones and a Niji water brush. I had never realized that  using a waterbrush would make the colors more delicate.  Hard to get lots of color with a waterbrush. 

The Scion.  A sporty model that was on the showroom floor. We drooled over it when I was car shopping last fall but was practical and got a Prius. 

Painted with cerulean and burnt umber greys. The windshield is a green blue. Pen is a Staedler in my Stillman and Birn. 

  

Still waiting. One car done so why not draw another?! A big Lincoln SUV was parked right outside the window nearest me. Have you ever tried to paint a white car that is mostly in the shade?! Careful or you get a blue car. 😁 background is cerulean and yellow ochre. 

Don’t forget to cover up your car when you splatter the background. 

Thanks for looking!

Day 293 – So many sketches 

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 which should I post?!  I have been painting up a storm the last few days and I keep drawing more to paint. Sooner or later I will get them all posted. 

  

I drew the Locks at Savannah Rapida last Thursday when I was at the Savannah Rapids park for The Newcomers Lunch and a talk by the head of the Savannah River Keeper  (http://www.savannahriverkeeper.org https://www.facebook.com/savannahriverkeeper) who does her best to keep the Savannah from being the most polluted river in the country instead of the fifth like it is now. 

Glad I live above the pollution but both Augusta and Columbia County drink from the pollution as well as dump their waste in it so we can drink it. 😜 The things you learn at lunch. 

Drawn in my Stillman and Birn Zeta with my Noodler Creaper Ahab and Carbon Black Ink. Colors. Well just about everything on my pallette but the yellow. 

This was painted from background to foreground a cobalt sky and trees painted at one go. 

Trees. The greens are yellow ochre or sap green mixed with viridian. 

Same mix for the water with more cerulean. But the water was added LAST! Don’t forget to leave the whites. Hard to do!  

Greys are mixed with burnt sienna or burnt umber and ultramarine blue. Rust is burnt sienna but you knew that. 

Rocks I added yellow ochre to the grey mix. 

The locks were painted right before the water. 

Gel pen for hand rails. White gouache seemed like too much work! 

Thanks for looking.