Day 958 A relaxing Sunday

March 5, 20172 Comments

Well kind of sort of. Been busy posting about our show and getting it a write up in the local paper. In the meantime here’s a watercolor for you. I have to do it on paper for my friend Monica who is in it.

Monica works at the DuPont Planetarium at USC Aiken also known as the Ruth Patrick Science Center. She leads tours of school kids and gives them talks about the stars.

Follow the Drinking Gourd is the black history month lecture about how slaves used the Drinking Gourd the Big Dipper to find their way north to freedom.

I paint across the parking lot from her at USCAiken Etheridge Center. She invited me over to hear her Drinking Gourd talk. Monica did a dynamite job and I had to draw her. It was almost pitch black by the time I finished.

The sketch sat around while I decided how to draw the star field and the whirlpool galaxy. Never done that before.

I realized I could paint the night sky black and then splatter it with white gouache which worked out great.

I also wanted to make the galaxy bright in the center and fade at the edges. As I painted the sky with a mix of indigo alizarin crimson and hookers green I bled the edges around the galaxy with clear water. I coated it with very watered down Quin gold just to give a glow. Let it dry.

Coated the sky with the indigo mix again and bled the edges again. Then I added dabs of watery alizarin crimson and marine blue in a circular swirl. Let it dry. Added more of those colors and grey and purples to define the galaxy spin. Trying for that glow.

Finally I splattered the galaxy with white gouache and a very small brush. I should have used a tooth brush. Next time I will.

Highly recommend the Ruth Patrick tour!!

Happy Sunday.

Still in my Jammies relaxing on a chilly Sunday

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 957 It’s Saturday

March 5, 2017Leave a comment

One of my best so far I think. Al and Ruth said it is. So did Drew.

I decided to use my liquitex flesh as the darks with a little orange added to it. The lights are primary yellow flesh and white. The red is Quin red. I also used golden Indian yellow. The darkest darks are burnt umber and thalo blue.

Not quite done. Still need to paint out the hash marks on the left. Or at least not end the brown like that.

At the second break. The lighter dark is working well. Still a lot to do

And only half an hour left. Eek. After break will tackle the face and then the hands and whatever else I have time for.

First break. Forty minutes Of painting.

I started by carefully measuring how many heads wide and tall Emily was. For Example how many heads down was her right hand. I also used plumb lines to line up things like her right shoulder with the right side of her face. Her left wrist w the left side of her face.

I also decided that though the shadows on her face were very heavy purple was too dark and looked a little grey. So decided to make the darks peach w white and red orange made from Indian yellow and Quin or pyrrole red. I started w pyrrole red and ended with the Quin red.

Al Beyer’s lovely huge oil -3×4′ in an hour and a half! 😳

DrewMurphys large nude. Love the face. And the drape. Actually love the whole thing.

Iliana Van Pelt oil. She’s growing an artist by leaps and bounds.

AC Daniels lovely transparent oil.

Marilyn Hartley’s lovely sketch w a little color.

Kathe Dennis great swirly conte crayon.

This one is hers too. Always love her lines all over the place.

Rachel Millers beautiful small watercolor. This girl is so talented.

Fred’s tough lady.

Tom Needham’s lovely watercolor.

A very young mans pencil sketch. Great job!!

Thanks for stopping by. Still worn out from the show which was a great success.

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 952 Odds and Ends

February 27, 2017March 1, 2017Leave a comment

A little urbansketching at an ACA rally Saturday in Aiken. These rallies are great opportunities for drawing people.

Drawn on 300# arches cold press with a Noodler Konrad loaded with carbon Platinum Black Ink. Ted Nuttalls transparent colors.

Yeah she’s done. Well at least I think so. Kinda yellow but at least her body’s no longer distorted.

Here she was before I worked on her today.

I shortened her shoulder, added some her butt on the left,thinned down her right thigh and moved the right arm.

And I finished the hand on this one today so Sarah is done. Yeah. I ran out of time before I finished her left hand.

And that’s all folks. Time to head to French class. Ttyl

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 951 Lazy Sunday

February 26, 2017February 26, 2017Leave a comment

Ah NO. have a pile of 7-8 sketches to paint. Oh my!!

In the meantime. MY fav heathy out and about breakfast the bowl at the Inner Bean. Scrambled eggs black beans avocado tomatoes bacon and hmm oh cheese. Yum.

These guys sat next to me at the Bean as I ate my bowl. Deep in conversation over Masters preparations at local golf courses. Never noticed me sitting there sketching them.

Both done with a Lamy EF with Lexington Grey ink in a Stillman and Birn Alpha. Ted Nuttalls transparent colors plus cerulean.

A few of the pics of sketches I need to get painted.

Thanks for stopping by.

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 949 OOPPPs

February 25, 2017February 25, 2017Leave a comment

Slated to appear on the local dr Sketchys page as the logo I think it’s the logo. Well will let you know!!

Went to Dirty South Burlesque at Le Chat Noir and almost forgot to blog tonite. OOPPS. On the up side is I have NOT laughed so hard since….well I don’t know when. It was so FUNNY!!
This is the cast at the finale.

And then everyone dances. But I had to take pics.

More of the dancing and

Yes more. Lol

Did I say I have one at least free tickets to this at least three times and never gone. Well as I told Princess Augusta NO MORE!! I will be using them!!!

While we are on the subject of Chat Noir here are the rest of the dr Sketchys sketches.

All but the last one are done with a Pentel brush pen, whisky painters box with Winsor newton watercolors plus Daniel Smith Quin coral in a super aquabee 11×14″ tablet.
She was leaning on an exercise ball which I turned into the Chat Noir cat. Lettering in this one is done with a noodler Konrad.

This was a challenge to turn the exercise ball she sat on into a cat.

Turn her into a margaritas ad. I really wanted to put her on a glass but I didn’t have enough room.

Add a tropical animal. I turned her into Jane because I was tired of drawing her bikini.

We had to draw her three times. Which is all I did. I never did the challenge. Oops.

The End Fini Caput Finished drawn with caran Dache neocolor ii which were sprayed with a mister and allowed to drip.

Gooodnite. Tomorrow’s saturday. You know what that means!!

Ttyl Margaret xoxoxox whose off to bed. Well as soon as the dog comes in.

Day 948 Dr Sketchys part 1

February 23, 2017Leave a comment

Last nite was Dr Sketchys at Chat Noir one of my favorite times of the month. This is one of my favs of the ten or so sketches I did last nite. I did not feel like dealing with her legs which were very heavy so I swathed her in a gossamer white gown and called her Cleopatra complete with a deadly snake.

All sketches done with my Whiskey painter watercolor pallette loaded with Windsor newton WC and one lone Daniel Smith Quin coral and painted in a super aquabee tablet with a Pentel brush pen.

A warm up doodle with my Noodler brush pen and a Noodler Konrad with sepia ink.

2 minute sketch. Pentel brush pen.

2 minute sketch. Pentel brush pen

Five minute sketch. Pentel brush pen. Tombow marker.

Stay tuned for part two tomorrow.

Margaret off to Aiken for an art show opening. Xoxoxo

Day 947 Is it done?!!Ponce City

February 23, 2017February 23, 2017Leave a comment

Glad to update this with YES ITS DONE! Signed sealed ya wanna buy it?

After over a month of painting on this large canvas Looking Down-Ponce City Market. I can only hope!! It’s acrylic 3’x4′ BIG!!

And here’s the progress on it.

Not much else to say but IS IT DONE?!

Ttyl

Margaret at the vets with Zoe whose saying is it done is it done too. Xoxoxo

Day 944 Enterprise Mill

February 19, 2017February 23, 20173 Comments

This sketch took the longest of all the sketches I did Thursday. Large double spread in my Stillman and birn alpha. Drawn with my Lamy ef.

The building is vermilion or scarlet lake mixed with a bit of burnt umber or Piemonte. I also used Piemonte w ultramarine for shadows and windows. Makes a nice purpley blue dark.

I drew the last old house on Upper Broad Street yesterday. It’s a sad mess. Probably a tear down because nobody wants to live in the middle of a used weedy car lot.

Windows open rotted away and boarded up. But you can buy a Prius from the front porch! It must have been quite a house in its younger days 100 years ago. I wonder who lived there.

These two houses sit to the right across the weedy car lot from the lone house .

Ted Nuttall’s transparent colors. #2 Richeson squirrel mop brush.

Ttyl

Margaret who refuses to catch a cold but has a stuffed up head xoxoxo

#fatmans #EnterpriseMill

Day 941 A few more als and that urban sketch

February 15, 2017Leave a comment

Sketched at the Aiken Brewing Company on Laurens St downtown Aiken

Colors used Quin gold Quin red orange cerulean, burnt umber, ultramarine, hookers and a gel pen or two.

Draw with a Lamy Safari and Lexington Grey ink in a Stillman and Birn Zeta.

Als painting of a student circus 1990. Even then he was trying to paint like Vermeer.

Als friend from the gym who loved to tell stories. He was a rower in the 52 and 56 Olympics for Hungary.

Al after his heart attack. He used his computer camera to take this photo.

The models make Al look like a great painter so he says but we know he’s a great painter.

Ilaina gorgeous as ever. A Saturday painting. 3×4′

Als office. Always neat. Painted with acrylic. Much wilder than his oil paintings. LOVE This one. Think it got a certificate of merit at the State Fair.

Als an awesome painter and teacher the reason. I drove 60 miles three times a week to Aiken to become a better painter I HOPE!!

Xoxoxo

Margaret

Day 940 – LateNight Entertainment Al Beyer!

February 14, 2017Leave a comment

Our beloved prof Al Beyer was the program at the Aiken Art Guild last night and he was his usual humorous self peppering his talk with quip after quip such as “If you get a bad painting it’s your failt but if you get a good one (at lifemodeling) it’s all the model!! And that is true well sometimes.

This huge seemingly abstract is the way Al works. It will be a photorealistic water landscape painting when he’s done or as he calls it the most boring painting ever since it will be almost all water with his. A bit of tree bank across the top.

We told him we liked it as it is. An abstract.

He blocks off the painting into multiple blocks the size of a standard piece of paper. Every nite with a printed paper from his tiled photograph he paints one section in oil with a small brush which takes him about 2-3 hours per square.

Here he is with his helper Vanna aka Ilaina – one of our Saturday models.

Here’s a better picture of this huge painting. It’s made by layering multiple photos of Beijing in Photoshop. Interesting effect.

Hmm my sketchbook seems to be among the missing. I drew theses ladies yesterday while my excellent steak salad got cold at Aiken Brewing Company on Laurens Street in Aiken.