Pencils4tea live from Milan Italy

September 2, 2023September 2, 20231 Comment

Miss Marcia 3 min.
Always a lovely look to a watercolor of her.

14 live Sketches in an hour! 😳 @pencils4tea Thanks Ilairia and Kirsty and all of our models. Live on instagram from Italia aka Italy!! Always fun and challenging.

@Drawingisfree on instagram starts up again. More face drawing fun live from Paris for 1 hr at noon EST. Zoom Link in her bio on instagram. Pencils 4 tea will not meet next week. 😭😭😭 I really think these events have improved my sketching and loosened up my watercolors.

Highly recommend trying it. U dont have to share them and they will get better the more times you do it.

Our hostess Ilairia in Milan Italy 6 min.

Used 1 paint brush a 3/8” Princeton dagger brush. My cheap general HB charcoal pencil drawing w watercolors over it instead of pencil.

Ruth in Chattanooga 2 min
my frequent partner in art adventures for the last 12 years.

Wc Colors used DS quin burnt orange and quin rose, Cheap joes(cj) andrews Turquoise, cj yellow ochre, cj burnt umber, cj cerulean, cj cobalt , cj alizarin, and cj hookers green, Lukas Cad Yellow, m graham cobalt and ultramarine watercolors, 5×8” superaquabee sketchbook

Meg McCurtain 2:36 min.
Such a lovely long neck. In my next life I am asking for one!

Rone Prinz 3:45 min
Lovely puffy curly white hair and daisies my fav flower

Raphael 4:39 min
Really should have turned the book sideways to get his hand in. Oh well.

Molly 3:14 min
I finished her up afterwards because i knew three min was not enough to paint her lovely scarf.

Sarah Brunell 1 plus min.
Not enough tine of course. I took a deep breath and drew her. Then painted when we were done.

The weather here is beautiful after Idalia blew by. Sky is as clear as a bell. Cooled off from the brutal 100 degree days to 64 lows and highs of 85. Fabulous weather.

Margaret xoxoxoxo as usual ready to put her feet up!

Day 113 Raul

August 29, 20233 Comments

First washes. Ivory black not watered down into the wet background to soften the hair.

Rarely ever do the lips first but the hair was so wet couldn’t go near it for quite a while. Cobalt ultramarine and quin rose for lips.

A relatively easy paint. Burnt sienna in the shadows w dabs of ultramarine. Burnt umber eyes.

Beard and mustache spalled on with my chinese paint brush splayed to make hairs.

For skin tones Quin rose, a lot of raw sienna, some burnt sienna and quin burnt orange plus ultramarine shadows.

Used my cheap joes scroogys loose goose brush on his hair for the curls.

Background cerulean w a dab of burnt sienna.

9×12” superaquabee sketchbook.

Thanks, Judith @jyportraitchallenge and Raul @raulmouracampos.

Stairway to heaven aka our front steps in the sunlight.

Margaret getting over her cold finally. Xoxoxo

Day 107! The Red Feather

August 17, 2023Leave a comment

Don’t ask. Obviously i cant count. 🥴😵

Don’t forget tomorrow. Free every Thursday on zoom thru @pencils4tea on ig. Link on her bio. Just show up 1 pm est.

Day 107! The Red Feather. The fifth of the 7 I speed drew Friday and painted four of them including this one.

Quin rose, quin burnt sienna, ultramarine all the usual skin colors. Quin rose. Cerulean and andrews turquoise for that five o’clock shadows.

Ultramarine and ivory black for hair and hat. Yellow ochre and cerulean background. Cerulean, andrews turquoise, burnt sienna and ivory black for shirt. Lt cad red feather.

9×12” superaquabee sketchbook.

Thanks, Judith @jyportraitchallenge and @marzemog

Margaret ready to go to sleep. Zzzzzz.

Day 102 & 105- Pete and Thea

August 13, 2023August 13, 2023Leave a comment

Day 102! Pete
The name is Peter Bond. In my head that was funny. Maybe not.

There are 4 more portraits done and all of the sketches for the other three.

Quin rose, quin burnt sienna, ultramarine all the usual skin colors. Quin rose. Cobalt shadows

Hair cerulean and andrews turquoise w burnt sienna to make greys.

Shirt cerulean and cobalt. Striped done w a splayed chinese brush.

Ultramarine and yellow ochre background with dabs of burnt sienna.

9×12” superaquabee sketchbook.
Thanks, Judith @jyportraitchallenge and Pete @peterlockhart

Thea Day 105! Thea. 1 of the 7 I speed drew Friday and painted four of them.

Quin rose, quin burnt sienna, ultramarine all the usual skin colors. Quin rose. Cobalt shadows

Hair cerulean and andrews turquoise w burnt sienna to make greys.

Her awesome top is ivory black, burnt umber, raw sienna, and ultramarine splatted on w an 8 kolinsky sable round.

Andrews turquoise and yellow ochre background with dabs of burnt sienna. Seems to be my fav background lately.

9×12” superaquabee sketchbook.

Thanks, Judith @jyportraitchallenge and Thea @theadebruin

Thursday is @pencils4tea day

August 11, 2023August 11, 20232 Comments

Link @pencils4tea in her bio On ig. Every TH at 1 pm EST in the US.

@pencils4tea Thanks Kirsty and all of our models. Live on instagram from Dundee Scotland!! Always fun and challenging.

Anna w a hale brush . Her hair is white.

Michelle from California w a handful of butterflies

My cheap general HB charcoal pencil drawing w watercolors over it instead of pencil. Superaquabee sketchbook

Flesh Daniel Smith quin burnt sienna and MGraham quin rose. Blue shadows mostly cerulean and some cobalt and Andrew’s turquoise. Brown burnt umber and ultramarine to make black. Greys whatever blue brown mud i had sometimes adding ivory black.

Gorgeous Alexandra 2:46 a failure she so lovely. Does not do her justice

I confess i spent another hour titivating these aka tweaking them. Added all the backgrounds and painted some of the people later always spending at most five min on them per person.

Lily and Angela Shannon –
5+ min LOVE this one!

Liz always a pleasure to paint 3:20 min. Love her top! 4 diff patterns on it.

Ursula from Germany who i chat w alot on ig. One of my favs 3:46. She might need a background. Only 1 i didn’t give one to.

Rafael- Il es Français and he looks like it!❤️ 3:30 min

Daniella 1:19 min i confess i drew the cat and painted her after it. I had just started the cat when it ended.

Maggie immensely tahred xoxoxox

Day 101. Did I say I was stopping?!😵

August 8, 2023August 8, 2023Leave a comment

Day 101! This model has great panache. Love her glasses, the jaunty beret her tartan scarf.

Beret is burnt umber, ultramarine, with quin burnt, sienna and mineral violet.

Glasses are the same colors plus yellow ochre. The scarf well i think it was a crash and burn but finally settled on hookers green, ultramarine and some burnt umber. Cobalt in the blue green squares.

Cad red light and yellow ochre for the lips w a bit of cobalt. Yellow ochre cerulean and quin burnt sienna for the hair.

Great loose sketch took abt 20 min finally.

Coat is yellow ochre abs burnt sienna.

Door is cad red light and ultramarine w a wash of cerulean in the shadows.

9×12” superaquabee sketchbook.

Thanks! Judith @jyportraitchallenge and Jessika@adora_larte

Out back just now. Can u find the rainbow?!

Margaret xoxoxoxo

Pencils4tea today

August 4, 2023August 4, 2023Leave a comment

A sketchbook throw-down but i drew in all of them today. The 3 annoying sketchbooks. Try juggling 3 books while madly drawing.

Two full sketchbooks. Waiting for amazon to deliver new ones. Will NEVER use three books again. What an aggravation!!

Robin 3:52 min. Another fav
More than ample time for this lovely pose.

Molly not long enough to do this fun pose justice and oh that circle of yellow tape. 🥴

16 live Sketches in an hour! 😳 @pencils4tea Thanks Kirsty and all of our models. Live on instagram from Dundee Scotland!! Always fun and challenging.

My cheap general HB charcoal pencil drawing w watercolors over it instead of pencil. Superaquabee sketchbook

Barbara two min and we were done. I raced off to the dermatologist 😳

Out my back window after two hrs of rain. The egrets are starting to roost. Its August when the big birds show up. On the look out for a woodstork or two. The cormorants will be here soon.

Margaret def tired tonite. Xoxoxo

Day 97 Alice

August 3, 2023Leave a comment

@Pencils4tea tomorrow on instagram 1 pm EST Live from Dundee Scotland on zoom last week. Fun zany poses with crazy hats or objects a frequent challenge on this zoom portrait hour.

Alice @alicesulsul Day 97. Three more to go. Trying to catch up. Eeekk. All about the curly hair and the drips.

First layers.
Loving the drips. Burnt umber ultramarine and mineral violet for the hair w added dabs of cheap joes andrews turquoise. Quin gold and quin pink. Cerulean mineral violet and turquoise shadows. Clothes are the same colors plus holbein terre vert a Charles Reid favorite.

9×12” superaquabee sketchbook which was driving me a little nuts. It waffles badly when it gets too many wet layers. Then it would run into the face. Eekk. What happens when u soak 90 lb paper. Oh well.

Thanks! Judith @jyportraitchallenge and Alice @alicesulsu

Getting there but hair a little boring. Time to add some andrews turquoise.

Found these fascinating British artists who draw and are using fabric. Great youtube videos. This one does portraits on fabric. Cant wait to watch it. As soon as I post i am.

Margaret xoxoxo

@Pencils4tea & paper drifts!

August 1, 2023August 1, 20233 Comments

Marcia! A lady with the boxing gloves you never know what people w pose w @pencils4tea which was zoomed live from Dundee, Scotland.

We had 17 poses in the hour. I am surprised I made it through. Was like chasing a lure for an hour. Never quite catching it but yes i will be there next week of i have time. A challenge is thrown. 👍🏻

My friend Ruth. You can follow her @Britpeach on ig one of my two favs.

General Hb charcoal pencil and watercolor in a 6×9 superaquabee. Its almost full. Either going to have to draw smaller OR buy a big stack of them. Lasting abt 2-3 weeks with their 60 pages because u cant paint on the back because of the charcoal. Maybe forced to. Hmm.

Any suggestions???! In the meantime roaring thru paper. Right now i like it in sketchbooks so we aren’t buried under paper drifts.

Hmm too bad I cant draw on a roll of toilet paper. Rofl.

Sleuthing Susanna. Love her big eyes. I took three screen shots of the less than two minute poses and finished later. All 3 were all less than two minutes to draw which left no time to paint. Had to go back later and paint this one, Ruth and Miss Marple aka Anna.

Anna Marple as one of the artists called her. Each person had a theme song from a tv show or a movie. Hers was Miss Marple, my fav Agatha Christie series.

Karen and a yellow rose accompanied by Henry Mancini’s Charade. Maybe she just oeft one of the flower vendors along the Seine?? One of my fav movies-Audrey Hepburn and Carey Grant. Her clothes and Paris! Perfection.

Silvia. 2:30 minutes to draw her. Slapping the paint on. Always gives it an immediacy.

Serena love her grey hair piercing blue eyes. The tilt of her head.

Audrey. Theme song Summer Place. Sweet face.

Ellas blue white and red perfect for her Inspector Clouseau theme song. all she needs is a beret.

Out of Africa. Did not catch her name. That purple vase was a trial. Turned out ok. At least i kept the white paper for highlights.

Michelle. You never know what her pose will be. Always something zany. Laurel leaves to go with the Gladiator music??

Lou not Katherine. A great drawing. But darn the wrong name. My friend Ruths high school friend who lives in London. Gone With the Wind theme song.

A nice quiet pose for sketch number 17. Amelie theme.

Time to go paint. Behind on the portrait challenge. Number 100 approaching. Xoxoxoxo Maggie aka Margaret

Day 91

July 29, 2023Leave a comment

Done. Oddly the face is the same painting in both pics. All I can say is go figure.

Day 91 Donella @darealsdonella really like painting animals and who could resist this kid?! An armload of adorable fuzziness. I want one, please!!!

Lighter background otherwise everything is the same.

Forgot process pics. Managed to use alot of quin burnt orange in the goat. Perfect for him plus burnt umber and cerulean for the fur. Doneallas hair barely used yellow ochre. My current fav skin quin burnt orange and quin pink. Cobalt and quin pink top. Cerulean and burnt quin orange for the background plus andrews turquoise.