Day 93! Zoey

August 11, 2023Leave a comment

Day 93! Zoey A sweet selfie! Ready for a party!

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

Andrews turquoise and yellow ochre left background. Other side is cerulean and burnt sienna.

Burnt sienna and ultramarine for the dress. Makes a more vibrant brown than just burnt umber. Ivory black hair, cobalt shadows.

9×12” superaquabee sketchbook.

Thanks, Judith @jyportraitchallenge and Zoey @zoeykriegmont

Margaret tared again after painting four portraits today. #Knockingthemout! xoxoxo

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 99 Dan

August 8, 2023August 8, 20232 Comments

First wash. Quin rose yellow ochre burnt sienna ultramarine all the usual skin colors. Quin rose. Cobalt shadows

Almost done. Cerulean and burnt sienna background. just the pesky plaid shirt to do.

Burnt sienna and ultramarine for the plaid. Makes a more vibrant brown than just burnt umber. Cobalt shadows.

Margaret off to Asheville for the night! xoxoxo

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 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.

9×12” superaquabee sketchbook.

Thanks! Judith @jyportraitchallenge and Donella @darealsdonella

Better color in this one. IPhone is reliably unreliable for accurate color.

Margaret ready for bed. Xoxoxox

The correct color

March 13, 2023Leave a comment

I actually took this out on our wet back deck to photograph when the rain let up. You get more accurate color photos on an over cast day or so they say. The great debate was on as to whether it was done. I decided it was.

Heres the photo i took inside last night. A BIG change in the color, isn’t it?! Anyway the new owner of this large painting pronounced it “wonderful” so i take it that he thinks its done. Painting the edges, varnishing, and adding the wire tomorrow. This will eventually end up in the owner’s cabin in the Western North Carolina mountains.

Nature does not hurry and yet everything is accomplished. (Lao Tzu) is the theme of this painting.

The vultures have been gathering on our sycamore alot recently.

One was on the pool fence today feet from the back door. Fascinating creepy things. According to my husband they only eat meat once its rancid. No feathers on their head lets them get right into that rotten meat. 🤪

I had to take these pics thru the bars on the back deck rail. I was afraid to go outside for fear of scaring him off.

Pretty cool catching him with his wings wide open. Well at least part of them. There were several more in the yard. Our attack cats ran them off.

Margaret xoxoxox who had enough excitemnt for today. Lol.

Do i like it is it done?!

February 26, 20232 Comments

Ballerina quarterish sized sheet arches. All done wet in wet using six colors, the hideous potters pink was one. Had the nasty color forever. Who knew it could make wonderous skin.

It was A Ken Call class that Mike and I finally did today that is part of Watercolor Live 2023 back in January. Kens website is well worth a look. His portraits are gorgeous.

This is what it looked like at the beginning. Ultramarine , Potters Pink, Burnt Sienna Sodalite Genuine Paynes Grey and Burnt Umber on arches 140 cold press. I have some 300 but i did not want to cut it up to try this technique when i didn’t know if i would like it. Arches now costs $28 a sheet. Ouch. That was before inflation.

Drips are in with Ken. Me too. I do love a good drip. You use a flat synthetic brush to lift color almost back to the white on this project. Did i say we lifted a LOT in this painting??? Really kind of an amazing technique at least in his hands.

There are two videos of him painting on youtube. Both are about an hour and a half long if you are interested in trying this technique.

https://youtu.be/rzXfr75fbPQ

https://youtu.be/10E4HPMKDfo

Margaret who is ready to go to bed! G’nite xoxoxox