It’s Saturday

November 18, 2019November 18, 2019Leave a comment

Well Kinda sorta.

45 min sketch of Macy 15×22″ cold press fluid paper looking like an outtake from an Egon Schiele nude exhibit. His nudes were always stick thin with long bodies.

Is she finished??! No!!! She was 45 min late and I had to get back to Augusta for a hair cut. One MUST not miss your hair appointments ever!!

Hopefully I will get around to finishing her tomorrow in between drawing the eight talking heads testifying this week. 😳😳😳

Margaret trying to resist the urge to binge the crown and then there’s also Night manager by John LeCarre that I finally found on amazon. Ps. I did see the Good Liar with Helen Mirren and Ian McKellan. Hard to go wrong with that combo. Interesting and a twist. Love a twist. Xoxoxox

The Party’s over

October 5, 2019Leave a comment

Hitting the road in the morning

Drawing in lovely Valle Crucis in the am.

In the meantime a couple of Fealing Lin sketches from my notes for the week.

These will get watercolor.

Lamy EF Noodler Black eelskin Ink Handprint Art journal.

Remember what Picasso said learn the rules like a Pro then you can break them an artist.

Good advice.

Margaret ready to hop in bed soon. Xoxoxox

Live from Boone

October 1, 2019Leave a comment

Xoxoxo

A few more parking lot chickens oops roosters from Key west Wildlife Rescue. Poor things having to live out their lives in a Parking lot. The big buff guy actually spurred the other ones. Meany.

Joe Miller aka Cheap Joe and Fealing Lin. I think he might be dressed as Van Gogh if he loved to be an old man. Joe is a Van Gogh authority and does a delightful one man show about Theo Van Gogh Vincent’s brother which he has performed all over the US including the National Museum of Art in DC and the Met in NYC.

Margaret having too much fun in Boone. Like coming home. Xoxox

Barred rocks rock

August 21, 2019August 21, 20196 Comments

Did I say I LOVE drawing chickens??? Worth a ride to key west to just draw chickens.

I actually followed the chickens around at the homestead in the great Smokey’s National Park to draw these Barred Rocks. Too much fun.

I used to not like chickens. That’s before I started drawing them in all their infinite variety.

And somebody please tell me why I love to draw anything and everything when I am out of town. Staring at a bulldog lamp that’s saying draw me draw me. I don’t get that at home.

Lamy Ef strathmore 500 wc paper cerulean burnt umber ultramarine quin red quin gold.

Margaret who has to do a self portrait tomorrow. Eeekk. Xoxox

Day 1061 -how many more?! And a beach party!!

June 17, 2017June 17, 2017Leave a comment

Still quite a few!!! 🤗We have no shortage of talking heads in this country. They offer great drawing practice. If you can pause your tv it even takes the pressure off of trying to draw them quickly.

And all they do is talk. And talk and talk.

And pass a lot of laws that half the country don’t like no matter which side you are on making the other half is unhappy!

The Decatur Businesses Beach Party in downtown Decatur on the square. Ponce de Leon became a giant beach!! Free beach buckets, beach balls and balloons oh and washable tattoos for all!!

An amazing stilt walker. The kids had no idea how he could be that tall! Several people on top of each other was their best guess.

And there he goes legging it down the block or should I say stilting down the block?!

And a rare shot of the old Decatur Courthouse with sun on its face. It usually sits in the shade. Bytw this is now an art gallery.

Off to play with my grandkids. Hugs!!

Day 1055 -It’s Saturday!!

June 10, 2017June 10, 2017Leave a comment

It’s Saturday and Miss Emily is our model.

Slathering the paint on like cake icing. Lots of impasto. A little hippy and busty?! I moved that right arm at least three times. Scrapped it off and started over again and again and again.

At the first break. 4o minutes in.

Kathe playing with my caran dache neocolor ii and some charcoal.

Not sure who drew this.

Fred Mr Mondigliani Baker. A Fred funny today. Asked Dr Fred what do you call a liar a sociopath?! He said a Billionaire re our president. Thought that was great.

Jeremy’s. Gorgeousness

Al Beyer’s huge oil

Coaches great charcoal.

And that’s all folks. Still contemplating St comeys halo.

Ttyl Margaret. Xoxoxo

Day 1044 – That Dirty Dried out Palette

May 31, 2017Leave a comment

Now that I am home for a day or two I wanted to use my Ted Nuttall palette. This is actually Teds Palette.

All those lovely transparent colors.

And it helped with my procrastination mode getting started painting the Raisin and Harley painting

which is finally transferred to paper and ready to paint.

Of course my Palette has dried out and filthy. They always dry out!! It needed revival and cleaning. Another way to procrastinate!!! The spray bottle was not getting the job done. The colors were lumpy and nasty.

So how did I get it clean and get the paint smooth and ready to use!?

First I sprayed it and tried stirring each color with its own tooth pick. That did not do much for the lumps. I wanted to paint!!!

I got out my trusty old palette knife. It has a tiny blade on it compared to most so it fit perfectly in the wells of my porcelain palette.

I used a jillion Kleenex wiping wells out where there was just a dribble of old hard paint. NO LOTION On those Kleenex.

I started bending my antique palette knife in some of the paint. Oh NO!! I kept going. What palette knife is supposed to last forever!?

I decided to rearrange the colors. Here and there I had added colors I MUST have to the basic Nuttall Palette like Cerulean, Andrews Blue, Daniel Smith Piemonite and Green Apaptite.

The Kleenex and the palette knife left crusts of color in the corners.

Then I realized I could fill the wells with water and used an old brush to swirl out the bits left in corners. Hallelujah clean wells at last.

I used a sharpie to rewrite the colors on the edges of the wells and I even have a few leftover slots.

So it’s new clean and lovely at this point.

What I learned while cleaning my palette.

Wear rubber gloves while cleaning your palette unless you want to have colored fingernails. 😱
Those dollar store Kleenex with lotion have something wierd in them. They gave me a rash when I used them on my nose. 😱😱 Now gone. 🤗🤗🤗
Now I know why some people have stacks of these palettes. It might be easier to just buy a new palette than clean the old one out.

Margaret who has some painting to do. Xoxox and no more reasons to procrastinate because I even cleaned up the studio and moved to the summer one aka the kitchen table and island.

Oh wait I need to use the glass cleaner on the winter studio table. It’s looking hazy. Procrastinate procrastinate. I need some flowers to paint!!

🌼🌻🥀🌷🌷🌸🌺🌼🌻🥀🌹🌷🌸🌺

Day 1036 – The Farrier

May 23, 2017May 28, 2017Leave a comment

I took a great photo of Raisins farrier when he was showing Harley and Beau a couple of weeks ago.

He has luxurious mustaches.
Here’s the photo I took in the barn when he took a quick break.

Filing shaving who knew it was such a job. Not to speak of holding up the foot of such a large beast. Harley is 17.2 hands. A big fellow!

As you can see it’s hard work shoeing horses. They have been known to sit on farriers while their shoes are being changed.

I was surprised he was all done in about an hour. Busy guy!!

The sketch. Drawn on 140# cold press fluid paper.

Marking progress.

At this point he’s pretty scary looking. The shadows on his cheek look too dark.

Not fond of the no lost edges look of his head. Every thing was too hard edged. Not what I had envisioned. So I left him here to think about it overnite.

Besides I had to watch the last show of Call the Midwives. LOVE that series. Now I can watch it all over again. Yes I have it on DVR!

Here he is with the beard in progress and some background added. Starting to loose some edges. I decided to do him what I do when I don’t like the way a painting is going. Add some sloppy dots.

Once you don’t like a painting it’s a good opportunity to just mess with it.

I started reading this great watercolor book that Raisin gave me. Ran across his art at Cityart when I went on the Vista Gallery Walk last month and was thrilled to find he had a book.

One of the things he suggested was spraying the hard edges with a spray bottle?! WHAT?? Yes SPRAY the edges to loose them.

So I hit the background with the spray bottle. What a great effect. Juicy runny spotty color. LOVE The effect.

Did the same thing on the left background. And swished it with a big brush.

Love the speckles the runs and then the light areas. Try it. Such fun!!

It did leave a few horizontal drips on the left that I didn’t like but a few swipes with Mr Clean and zip they were gone.

See?! All gone! Got to love fluid paper for its liftability.

Yesterday I didn’t like the dark ick colored shadows on his cheek. Funny today they don’t bother me. I guess time fixes paintings as well as the heart. Lol!

So he’s done for now. Fixating on his mouth and that hard edge Sean on his shoulder. Oh well nothing’s ever perfect. Going redraw him on an offer sheet of 300# paper today.

Margaret who has to get drawing now. Xoxox

Day 746 More GNSP

July 19, 20162 Comments

Mt Le Conte 8×10″ watercolor Strathmore 500 watercolor paper

Drawing Mt Le Conte from the Gatlinburg Bypass overlook.

Mt Le Conte in the Spring last year. 5×10″Aquabee supertablet Pentel brush pen.

From the same overlook but the other end of the car park. Odd how much of Gatlinburg you can see depending on where you park.

Once again Ted Nuttals transparent colors. The foreground grass was done by scratching wet paint with an old palette knife.

Back to madly knitting my freestyle socks.

Finished last nite.

Started this morning.

Day 743 – Wild Plum Tea Room

July 15, 2016July 16, 2016Leave a comment

One of my favorite places to eat in Gatlinburg. delicious food. An amazing flourless chocolate torte. I do wish I had gone back and tried the alcoholic root beer float with their homemade vanilla ice cream especially now that I am back on Lo carb! 😏

We usually eat outside but since it was raining the deck with its umbrella covered tables was closed off.