Category: Life drawing

Day 900 Augusta Ga 

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Home of James Brown. Yesterday I had wanted to draw a musician live and thought where the heck will I find one of those?! 

Met a friend downtown at New Moon Cafe and as I was leaving guess what happened. A saxophone player started playing OUTSIDE!! Hurrah!! 

So I sat out on this cold rainy day with Calvin and drew him. He was thrilled when he saw it. I also gave him a nice tip. 

I asked him why he was out in 47 degree weather in the rain playing. He said he had gotten the notion that he needed to play “Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head” downtown today. So he did. 

Here’s Calvin before I added the scratchy lines with my noodler Konrad. I think the thin lines really added to the energy of this sketch. He tended to stand still when he played so not much action to draw. 

I used my Pentel Brush pen and Noodler Konrad. Tried to use a thick sharpie but it bled thru the heavy pages of the mixed media S&B zeta. So I did not keep using it. 

I may paint this. I haven’t decided.  

The quote on the top right is a quip from my friend Marsha over our breakfast at New Moon Cafe this am. Yummy but FaTTeNinNG!!

Thanks for stopping by. 

Margaret in rainy Georgialina xoxoxox

Day 899 – Some More Urban Sketching

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I pass this cute diner every day twice a day on the way to class at USC Aiken or on Saturdays when I go to life modeling. I am always on a mission to get to Aiken on time or to get home and let the dogs out so I never have stopped to eat there. I hear the pies are great. They decorate it up for fall. Lots of pumpkins corn stalks and roosters. There’s even an old ford truck that gets strung with garlands of fall leaves. I didn’t draw it. I ran out of space. 

Here are the brushes I use. The bottom is my fav a sable Da Vinci 10 but the  tree and the sky were painted with a Richeson mop. A 12 that I bought at cheap joes two years ago. Very difficult to get any detail with it which is good in tree foliage. The tree branches and trunk were painted by a big goats hair dagger brush that I got at Sam Flaxs a couple of weeks ago. Very long and loopy  designed for sign painters. So far I can only get it to paint lines – Straight and curved ones. Practice right?

 

And I love this sassy rooster sculpture out on the highway in front of the cafe. I need to draw him with a brush pen on a sunny day. School starts Monday so will passing the charming fellow again several times a week. Maybe one day on the way home again soon. 

Stillman and birn Mixed media Zeta with a pilot Carbon pen. Really fine point. 

Colors used. Quin gold. Cerulean, ultramarine, burnt umber, Quin burnt orange, pyrrole red, cad orange, hematite green, peacock for the sky.  And a bit of American Journey Andrews blue a turquoise that I added to my pallet  lately. 

Homework done. Done. Had to make myself do this one and I love doing calligraphy just not fond of the word hate. Used my pentel brush pen -heavy lines- a Noodler Konrad – fine black lines – and a red tombow for hate. Oh a light Gray tombow for shading in love. 
That’s all folks. Got to do my homework for sketchbookskool. Did I say I am behind because I went sketching Mahjong ladies at a local cafe after yoga today when I should have been doing my homework. 

A bientot Margaret xoxox

Day 882 Don’t Break the Painting! 

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Photo #3 Finally looks like Al our favorite art professor. He makes quips like 

  • Don’t Break the painting to have to fix it …because my students always tell me they will do it later and they never do. 

And of course I broke this one. I used gouache partly because Al likes it better than watercolor but also because the sketch was terrible. The face was too fat the eyes were off and at the wrong angle. All the black around it is where I corrected it and colored over the background. 


This is a not quite done pic. I take pics with my phone sometimes to see how it’s coming. I also sent it to a couple of friends who critiqued him. Face too fat and not enough top of the head. I only added a fraction of an inch and it really helped it look like him. 

The gouache was a lot of fun but I need a bigger tube of white. I am going thru it like potato chips.  

A few more Al-isms or painting according to Al. 

  • Nail it by doing prep work. The sketch and underpainting are fright before you start final painting. 
  • Warms and cools make a happy painting-Complimentary Pairs. 
  • Brush strokes – bigger the better. Use house painting brushes and paint it in one pass. 
  • Same intensity of two complimentaries make them pop.
  • Change blue use thalo sometimes. 
  • Thick paint makes it closer glazes farther away
  • Texture brush strokes 
  • People are stingy about their paint. 
  • A really great painter pays attention to the corners and edges not just the middle. 

Thanks for looking in. 

Margaret whose sleepy. 

Day 881 - James

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Ok so another tv drawing. James Taylor was on CBS Morning News yesterday after being honored st the Kennedy Center. Always loved him so naturally I was tempted.  


He’s a little long in the face but otherwise I really love him. The eyes are great. 

Note to self. Take time to measure!!!

Painted with Ted Nuttalls transparent wc palette. Drawn with a pentel brush pen in a Beta Stillman and Birn mixed media journal. 

This is Teds actual hand held palltette.

These are the actual colors he recommends for the most transparency. I just have to add a couple. Cerulean and a Daniel Smith quin coral. The coral makes great skin tone mixed with quin gold or quin sienna or red orange. 

Thanks for checking in. Ttyl. Gotta draw another person but this time my own photo. 

Margaret staying in after yoga and another exercise class at the Y today. A nap soon!! 

Day 856 – Happy Veterans Day

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Once again I posted this yesterday on that OTHER website…sigh…

Somehow saying Happy Veterans Day seems like a conundrum to me because is not happy and people remembering it are sad.

That said I am sharing sketches of War Memorials I did in France last fall in Normandy at the sites of the Allied D Day Invasions 71 years ago.


The Canadian Cemetery at Beny sur Mer. It was odd to me that people to young to know the men buried there were crying over dead relatives.


That said I found myself doing the same thing as I shared a link to my dads historic battle of Foxhill at the Choisin Reservoir in 1950. PBS recently aired a riveting documentary about the week long battle. I had heard bits of the story but to actually see the 32 below conditions they fought in, the rugged almost arctic landscapes, the mass burials of the Marine dead,the frozen Chinese who were shot because the Marines had no other choice in this desperate time was a totally different experience.

The beautiful Canadian Juno Beach Museum shaped like a maple leaf on the beaches of La Manche, the Sleeve as the French call the English Channel. A stunning building wrapped in glowing aluminum with state of the art exhibits.

The Ranville Eglise next to another Canadian Cemetery in Caen Normandy France. The day was getting dark and somber threatening rain that afternoon.

The Pegasus Bridge Museum. Using gliders brave British paratroopers jumped behind Nazi lines BEFORE the Allied invasion forces landed on the Normandy beaches. I am sure many of them are now buried at the nearby Ranville Cemetery. They are immortalized in the movie The Longest Day.
Thanks for stopping by.

Margaret xoxox

Day 758 Black Dawg

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Happy Sunday. Busy watching Oprahs Super Soul Sunday so my post will be short. 

I have a new big rug in the den and Honey evidently loves it. The lab hair I have vacuumed off of it!

So Honey is losing more hair for me now. A quick sketch in a small Aqua superbee tablet with a Noodler Konrad loaded with Carbon Platinum black ink. The red is a Tombow pen. Tombow  are highly fugitive but fun to play with especially when you don’t feel like getting out the watercolors.

Ditto the first one. She looks like a fat black seal. She’s really a flabrador but it’s hard to tell her no. And then there’s a slight case of counter surfing. Bad dog.

The neighbors think her name is Biscuit because I get her to come by calling Biscuit! The dog has a serious love affair with Cracker Barrel Biscuits even when they are days old.


Knitting socks for my 93 year old dad. Malabrigo sock yarn. He’s a blue lover so these should be a hit.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

#lab #labrador #ink #sketching #art #drawing #Honey #rescuedog #puppylove #augusta #atlanta #ink #maggieinsc #dog #artist #dailydrawing #love #entertainment #portrait #life #knitting #socks #malabrigo

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 733 – more Saturday paintings and 

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Sketches. Some of the work yesterday was just exquisite. 

Al Beyers. Oil – This is huge. 3’x4′ easy. And he painted it in less than two hours! The man’s a wonder. 

Drew Murphey’s acrylic 24×30. Always love Drew’s work. And the colors. What a great sense of color!! And so loose!! 

A kid next to me drew this. It’s just lovely. I hate I don’t know his name. 


Nor do I know the name of the lady who drew this great pastel. 


And last Fred’s. Always interesting post impressionistic work. 

Thanks for looking. 

Margaret xxx

Day 732- A Great Saturday 

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Or at least my painting this morning turned out well I think. 

An LA Gallery saw it on Instagram and is interested in my work. YEAH Me. 

Anyway. I actually remembered to take in progress pics of her today. I thought you might like to see them. 

The first blocking in. The most important thing I learned this year was how to always get the whole figure on the canvas. You measure her head and use that to get both the height and the width of the figure. 

Who knew??! Only took me two years to discover that. You my dear readers can try it. Works every time. 

You will notice the long vertical lines. They are plumb lines I dropped off her head and shoulder to line her bday up farther down. 
Here she is at thirty minutes of work. 

At the next break. 

Almost done. Oh my goodness she’s not that thick thru the middle that’s her left arm. Duh!  


Here she is done. So far I don’t want to change anything.  A first for me. 

The canvas is toned w Golden Quin Nickel Azo Gold. The defuse is painted with Winsor Titanium White, liquitex flesh, burnt umber, and Thalo blue, plus Golden green gold, dioxzine purple, and pyrrole red Thanks for reading. 

Margaret. 

Day 731 Another Year?!

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Who knows?! Maybe.  


Emily acrylic 24×30″

A face lift!! Remember I only painted in her perhaps an hour and half Saturday. This is a big painting. 24x 30″ in acrylic

I worked a bit on Emilys face yesterday. Especially the mouth and ear. And did more negative painting around the head. 


Here’s her head when I started. Not much of an ear. Lips and Bridge of nose off. Hair to light and brown. Ear flat.   I could go on. 


Emily acrylic 24×30″

Here’s the whole painting now. Worked a bit on the hands – highlight and shadows – and the breasts. She reminds me of a Van Gogh- one of the women he painted Madame somebody. 

Emily Saturday
Colors : Golden Nickel Azo gold and green gold. Liquitex Titanium white flesh pyrrole and cad red light.