Day 927  Inner Bean again 

But I was drawing lunch not drawing the restaurant. First piece of cake from Inner Bean in months. I used to eat cake there a lot. Not since I have lost 30 lb. 

Worst thing about drawing your food is that you can’t eat it til you draw it. I got

The delicious strawberry cake first. Before the salad. And I was hungry. I resisted. Did I say Inner Bean is famous for its cake?   They won Best Cake in Augusta recently. The cake is Just THE  best.

Ttyl

Margaret with a busy week. Getting ready for My solo show next week. Xoxox

Day 924 Gesture sketches 

A gesture sketch is done looking at a person usually but I got annoyed with the way mine are going and decided to draw the dogs with gestures. 

I think I drew these Tuesday and they were great practice for Dr Sketchys. Here are the rest of them. I really want to draw dancers this way. 

Esmeralda is the top left. Quasimodo, Frollo, and Esmeralda bottom right and left. 

These were all drawn while I was watching Notre Dame de Paris on YouTube. A lot of dramatic gestures good for drawing.  

So how do you draw a gesture sketch!? I used a brush pen on these. No drag! It lets you draw quickly. Gesture sketches are quick – a few lines to capture the gesture. 

Why practice gesture sketches so you can mail sketches at Dr Sketchys or when you are out and about drawing people on the go. It really does help. 
Here’s a pile of them. 

 The first one I did. Eekkk.

Dancers well NO. But they were suppose to be. 


More dancers. Not the greatest but better. 


And a few more dancers. I like these better today than when I drew them.  The feet kept disappearing when I froze tyhe video to draw the dancers or they zipped off into artistic shadows. Visually great to look at but makes drawing HARD!!  

Go try it. A lot of fun. 

Margaret already in her flannel jammies for this cold winter weather. Well cold by Georgia standards.  52!! 😱

Day 922 You Knew It 

Part 2 Dr Sketchys. I did more than a dozen sketches Wednesday nite. And met friends for a delicious dinner at Bees Knees before. Avocado chop chop. Who knew a baked avocado could be  So delicious. Loaded with crab. I really must draw one. And the rainbow trout perfection. All the while we sat in a store display window eating all this deliciousness. 


Going to have to go back and snap some pics when the bar is full. Love this shot it just needs people. 

More jujitau sketches. This one was five minutes I think. 


Hmm his head is too small I think. Hard to tell now with no reference pic. 


We were suppose to add a monkey to this contest sketch but darn I forgot. Too busy drawing and painting. 


Not bad but head is off. Ilaina really is a gorgeous woman inside and out. Doesn’t do her justice. 


The best of three attempts. Body is good but face too cute. 

Chin too long. Legs too short. As I told Rachel I peaked too early. Lol. 

And oh my – legs ridiculously short. Actually head doesn’t look bad. The vagaries of fast sketching.  


Another contest sketch. I will actually be selling this one at Wet Paint an auction for Greater Augusta Arts Council Feb 18. Funny while sketching it I realized that I had no idea what an ak 47 or a kolishnikof looks like. I don’t even know how to spell the later. lol. 

Busy day. Ttyl 

Margaret who needs to shed Her cat and dog blanket and get dressed. Xoxoxo

Day 921 Dr Sketchys part 1

Our model last nite was just phenomenal.  She struck pose after pose with NEVER a down minute.  These are all two minute poses drawn with my pentel brush pen in a large super aquabee sketchbook. 

My favorite of the nude poses I think. If you have ever done a gesture drawing that’s how I do these. Well at least I think that’s what I am doing. 

Or maybe this is my favorite 

Not quite done. Ran out of time. Two minutes goes fast. Maybe I spent it breathing after the first three poses. 

Yes two minutes. Funny how fast you can sketch with the pentel brush pens. 

Ilaina is also into yoga and ju jitsu. Two minutes. ALOT of drawing for two minutes. 

Ditto the above. Sometimes I surprise myself. 

A Bientôt. Yoga time soon. 

Margaret xoxox

Day 920 -Charlie Rose Asks the Hard Questions 

My favorite.  Today’s Sketchbookskool homework was to draw four freeze frame views of the human head. I took these off air this morning on CBS This Morning by pausing the tv. 

I think I should have sharpened my pencil more. I think they look a little over worked because of the dull pencil. If I knew where my mechanical pencils were I could use them. Lost somewhere in this house. 

My Cheap Joes #2 did a great job but like all #2s it quickly dulls. Hey but it’s a free pencil that you get with your Cheap Joes orders. 

My second favorite.  A yarn bomber crocheted him a pair of size 13 sneakers. Charlie likes his feet to be comfy and ALWAYS wears a pair of sneakers. 

First attempt.  I think he looks tired. 

We were suppose to draw a profile. Most commentators are rarely in profile so not a great reference photo. Had to get done because tonite Dr Sketchys. More drawings to come hopefully. Our model is one of the Saturday models. The lovely Ilaina. Hurrah. 

Bientôt. Off to school. 

Margaret having a very busy three days. Xoxoxo

#CharlieRose #Cbsthismorning #tv

Day 918 The Feet that Marched 

Right foot left foot. 

Contour drawing. Well supposedly. 

 I tried not to peak at my foot but that’s so hard. Maybe I will try again after my painting class this afternoon.
I had to color this coloring book like page. COULD NOT give up color once we started!!

L-R Noodler Konrad, Lamy Safari, Pentel Brush Pen, Carbon Pen.  

Done with four different pens but I had to color my coloring book page with. Prismacolor art sticks.  

Ttyl time for class. Getting ready for TWO shows. What was I thinking. 

Margaret xoxoxo 

Day 917 Urban Sketching the Woman’s March

Despite the deluges yesterday a large crowd turned out. It was a rainbow kind of crowd – old and young, men and women, LGBT and even a few dogs.

 

I drew these yesterday on a very wet day in downtown Augusta. The March and the speeches were at historic Springfield Park where Morehouse College started at Springfield Baptist across the street. 

The flame like sculpture on the rampart is all a part of the park. I did paint these at home. I didn’t think watercolor would work  too well in deluge weather.  Besides there was nowhere to put anything down because it POURED all morning too. 

A second even faster sketch of the happy crowd of raincoats and galoshes.  I think the correct number of marches was actually 671 but the speakers said 370 and 20 countries. 

The sketches were done in my Stillman and Birn Zeta mixed Media with my very patriotic Red Noodler Konrad.  I added the flags and the signs to give more interest to the sketches.  

Notice the big raindrop blotches on the ink?! Oops. Bravely I kept on sketching standing on top of a bench for a better view.  

Here’s the first sketch and a picture of the crowd and park. The local news reported 600 people were there.  I think there were closer to 1000. Guess it’s impossible to count. 

Somebody asked me how I drew these. The only thing I can say is start at the front and fill in the crowd moving back or you won’t have room for the people in the foreground. 

You can not draw a counter in a restaurant and then add people. You have to do it people first then the counter or pencil in the counter which I rarely do. Sometimes it gets me into trouble when I forget the order :

People first background last!

Happy sketching. 

Margaret madly painting black edges on canvases for her show at 4p in February. Xoxoxo and yes it’s still raining.  

Day 916 skies 

When you live on a river you see a lot skies. Sunrises sunsets and 

 

wild storms blowing in from the west across Georgia and the Savannah River.

Because it was a stormy sky I used a lot of marks to make it hopefully seem stormier. 

These are done with Prismacolor art sticks and colored pencils in my Stillman and Birn Zeta Mixed Media Journal. Lines and lettering with the Lamy Safari I think or the EF. 

Ttyl Margaret xoxox

Day 911 Finally some color and Fauvism! 

Color always excites me. The more the better. The reason I took this class. This week in sketchbookskool drawing a day class we are finally using color. All 96 crayons. And Prismacolor pencils and a few pens. 

The challenge today was to draw flowers two ways. One the normal way and one in a fauvist  style using as many crayons as possible. See below for all the crayons I used!!  

Fauvist is an early 20th century movement lead by Matisse that grew out of Impressionism. It means wild beast because the pictures have colors where you would never find them in nature.  

This was drawn by drawing a bit then changing to another color. 

Of the two it’s my favorite. 

 

Here’s the first sketch drawn using the color the sunflowers and the case truly are. Much more boring than the first one don’t you think?!  Try it!! Grab any crayon and draw a bit grab another and keep going.  You can be a wild beast too. 

All the crayons. 😱 

You will find one or two will Judy not show up on the paper. 

This is yesterday’s homework mark making in color. Instructions were to fill up a page with marks only. 

I used just a handful of colored pencils and a couple of markers. This took about an hour believe it or not. Fun to do. 

Prismacolor pencils are the best.  If U don’t  have some go get some. Michaels half price coupon. 

Bytw don’t drop them. They break inside the wood and become hard to sharpen. Ask me how I know? !!

Here’s what I used. 

Thanks for reading. More color fun tomorrow. 

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 910 – Hours of Marks Making 

Happy MLK Day dear readers!!  A holiday is always a good day for lots of drawing and painting. 

Spent three hours last nite drawing this old rice paddy down the street from my house which is built on an old antebellum rice plantation. No idea how many pens I used. Also scratched the wild rice tops with my xacto knife.  At least I assume that’s what they are. 

The assignment was to make a variety of marks. And I tried to add a variety of tones and not relie on lines. Have you ever tried drawing weeds and trees without line. Not easy.  

Stillman and birn Zeta.  I know I used my Noodler Konrad, both pentel brush pens, my carbon platinum pen and my Lamy Safari and a white pentel gel pen.  They each make such different lines both in weight of line and style of line. Even the two pentel pens are very different from each other. 

A detail for those who don’t like to click on the big pic. 

 And a few words from MLK himself. Words to live by in a daily basis too. 
Ttyl off to draw. 

Margaret xoxox