Category: Gatlinburg

Day 740 – painting started 

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And a redo 

Bear Country in Pigeon Forge. 

I was sitting at the gas station and looked up to see this. Such great colors and people. You know I had to draw it. 
Ivy Rose Wedding Chapel on the E Parkway Gatlinburg TN

A bit of a redo. Darkened it a lot. Gave more contrast to the white chapel. I really need to practice painting greenery. I do think it looks better than it did. 

Here it is before. 

But no more double page spreads in the Prius. What was I thinking. 

Finally found the three foot plus strip that I drew near the Newfound Gap Overlook but this is looking toward Tennessee. The Gap is at the NC/TN state line. 


Looking toward NC. 



Here’s a closeup of the strip. I am going to practice painting more trees and mountains before I paint this. 

Painted with Ted Nuttalls transparent pallette. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 739!! Sunday

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Mike High Overlook – Balsam point Great Smoky National Park.

 And it’s my grandsons fourth birthday so still busy busy busy. Off to Walmart to buy a pool to hide dinosaur bones in. We are digging for bones this afternoon. And a bouncy house. Who needs presents??! 

Oconaluftee Farm – Great Smoky National Park. If you haven’t been to the park you should. It’s truly a national treasure. So much to do and see and it’s all free. 

All of these sketches were done on Strathmore 500 watercolor paper or in a Strathmore mixed media 500 sketchbook. 

Most were done with a fine nib Carbon Platinum Pen with permanent Carbon Platinum ink. When I get home I will paint them and hopefully bind them into a book. 

Barred Rock chickens at Oconaluftee Farmstead. 

More Barred Rocks. Adding some elk prints to this one. They are everywhere at the farm eating the crops just like the deer. 


Oconaluftee River with a gain sycamore. A few lines was enough. I can always add more when I am done. 

Hopefully it will look like this when I get done. 

Huge hemlocks at Oconaluftee. 

Day 737 A parakeet

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And a parrot
Rosy ring necked parakeet

Parrot that needs more work I think. 


Hmm well you shouldn’t paint at midnite. What else can I say!? He should be more of an emerald green but that’s easy to fix.just another coat of darker green. 


One coat of a nice green and he’s better. Not so pale and washed out.  

The background is cerulean and Quin sienna. Not a big fan but the sienna works well with the cerulean. Splattered with the same colors. 

Check by for a parrot update. Off to find something to draw I hope. 

Margaret xxx

 

Day 73? – About that Parrot 

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Hot off the paint brush. Red macaw at parrot mountain. Best sketching fun I have had in a while. And it looks so much better painted. 

Pyrrole red alizarin Crimson maganese blue and the usual culprits cerulean burnt sienna Inathrodone blue all done wet on wet. Oh burnt umber for the blacks. 

I often wonder why I can draw animals and scenery in public as people drift by but if I am drawing people I like to hide my sketchbook. 

A peach cockatoo. He was too far away and people kept walking in front of the bird. Painted with a red orange soup that was on my Pallette. 

Entrance to Parrot Mountain and yes those are very steep steps. Pant pant. But the flowers are lovely.  Parrot Mountain takes in rescued birds of all types but most exotic birds like parrots and macaws and large parakeets. Owners don’t realize that some of these birds can out live them. 


We went in this way which is I guess the handicapped access- a concrete ramp which should be labeled ramp to heaven. Very steep!


A few macaws under their hats near the parking lot. Someone asked why they don’t fly away. They can’t. The wing feathers are cropped so the best they can do is flutter a short distance. Sad for the birds but at least they are well taken care of in a lovely jungly spot. 

Off for some lunch at the Plum Tea Room on the artists loop and away from the mobs of Gatlinburg or should I say herds?  So many people!

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 735 – Parrot Mountain

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I am off to draw and paint plus a little sock yarn buying therapy as soon as I post.

Parrot Mountain is wonderful. Lovely gardens filled with birds all owner surrendered or rescued. Parrots macaws parakeets and a lot of other exotic birds. 

 The place is just lovely with many quiet spots to sit and enjoy the birds but I was HOT to draw them and did. However the rain was NOT conducive to painting them. 


The Parrots and cockatoos have perches with little straw hats on top. I wish I had one yesterday when it started raining. Finally pouring but the lovely trees in the Parrot  Mountain Gardens saved me from a soaking. 

What are you doing my dear? Drawing. Some of the birds were so curious. 


One of the caretakers. He loves the birds and they love him.  


How’s this for a family portrait you will never forget?! 


Misty A highly endangered Blue Hyacinth macaw in the petting area. This is the bird the movie Rio is based on. 

Misty standing on her head half the time while I tried to draw her. 
There were probably 100 different birds of all types in this area.  

One of the cockatoos showing off for my son. Just the best $20 I have spent in a long time. Thoroughly enjoyed the place. I wish we could have stayed longer but we had a dinner reservation at the Buckhorn Inn and had to leave. We didn’t even have time to change for dinner we stayed so long. 

Drawn in a strathmore mixed media 500 journal with Noodler Konrad and Carbon Platinum plus black ink. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret off to paint something today. Xxx

Day 345 – That Paper!!

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 Gets five Gold stars in my book. 

 as I said yesterday I bought a landscape tablet of Aquabee Super Deluxe paper when I was at Binders at Ponce Market in April. Great store!! How often have you had an art store manager ask you what you would like to see carried in their store?! Told her a class with Charles Reid. I hope I hope!! 

  
Anyway I had read in David Millards great watercolor books about Super Deluxe Bee sketchbooks.  These books are 140 pages each just packed with information on watercolor. The price can not be beat. $4 or less on Amazon. Why do you ask?! The books are from the early 80s. The author died in 2002. Sadly I can’t take a class from him. He is big on sketchbooks big lots of tips on drawing crowds and buildings. The man knows sketchbooks. His favorites took all the water I threw at them and flattened out when I was done. Rare in a 93lb paper. And reasonably priced.  Amazon has the big 11×14 listed for $22 and full price is $25 for a 100 pages!! I am stopping by Cityart in Columbia on my way to Charleston to pick up an 11×14 for Dr Sketchys  and a smaller one to take to Key West in July. And maybe a tube or two of paint. Last week Randy the owner had Holbein paint half price. Why didn’t I order some?!  Cityart is the store that Charles Reid  and Mary White use to supply their classes. Great store down in the Vista. They also have a great website and shopping is almost overnite and so reasonable. 

  
I drew this last April in my super deluxe bee 6×12 landscape book with my Kuretake brush pen from an overlook in Gatlinburg. Never quite got around to painting it. I was too tired from all the running around. The brush own had loved the smooth paper.  Would the watercolor?! Despite what Millard said I am always a sceptic. And as Roz Stendhal says one thing you can count on is that paper will change. His books are 30 years old. 

Thank goodness he was right. I lost count of the washes I threw at this paper. Big watery wet washes layer after layer. While the paper buckled a little as I painted it was almost perfectly flat when it dried!!!  Hallelujah. A 93# paper that dries flat and doesn’t cost a fortune?! 

TIP!!! Bytw I started  the lower hills with a wash of light yellow Aureolin for the trees and gradually darkened it with very watery layers of red for the red oaks in the spring and darker greens and blues and mineral purple. Really like using the mineral purple as a dark. Using lots of layers of this colors let me keep the colors transparent. Aka didn’t make MuD!! Sky is a couple of layers of cerulean.

 
This is another sketch from the same overlook up in the Gatlinburg bypass. I meant to fill in the town but never did.  It started raining. It rained a lot the week we were in Gatlinburg.  And the pen ran out of ink. My kuretake converter holds a drop of ink. I swear. I did later find cartridges of platinum carbon black that fitted it so now I am good to go. 

Another plus for this paper. I just realized that the Pentel brush ink supposedly permanent but so often runny in my Stillman and Birn zeta did not run on this paper when I went back over the lettering and decided to add yet another wash. Hurrah. 
Thanks for reading. 

Margaret who needs to get packing!!!xxx

Day 311 – Finished Accordion Book 

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Hard to take good pics of these. It’s about 80″ long.  Sorry they are crooked. The paper is Stonehenge print paper I think. Cream colored. Lovely paper. You can actually paint on both sides which I did because I had filled up the front at Pops Under the Stars.  It was so much fun drawing that I kept on drawing and filled up the back. 

So here are  close ups of the front.    

  I started this in Gatlingburg. Only got two people done. Oops!  I drew the first lady while waiting for my mom who is the second lady.     

       

Love the lady to the right so much I drew her three times.   
Thanks for reading. 

Margaret XXX

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