Day 382 Key West Food Tour – A Commission

July 26, 2015Leave a comment

I drew this in my sketch book after we went on the Key West Food Tour. The tour director Analise had to have one for herself so I spent a couple of days tweaking the small one and painting it.

She was tickled pink with it. I am sure it will be framed shortly and gracing her office walls soon!
Let me know if you need me to do one for your business! Or your town!!

What you do with all those maps and ephemera you pick up on your trip. Draw on them!!

Yesterday was our last full day in Key West. We are packing to leave now. It was also the culmination of the Hemingway Days – the Pamplona bull race key west style and the winner of the Heningway Look alike contest is announced.

The guy on the left , Pat, won the contest lady eat. All the guys with the red ribbon and medal are previous winners. There were 175 entrants this year. Mostly old guys with big white beards. As my friend Siobhan quipped Key West is where Santa goes in the summer!! Lol   A rowdy crowd follows the papas around the block.

We also went to the Audubon House. His paintings there are gorgeous as are the gardens.

Out the Audubon house window to the Customs house. We included a tour of it on our SEVEN Mile GUT it out tour. Next year we are doing the hemingway five K. lol. Going into training NOW!!

Incredible philodendrons and pothos we grow as house plants tower fifty feet high in the yard.

My favorite plant in the garden.

A lobster plant. I think.

The ginger plant beautiful and smell heavenly.

Orchids hang off the trees.

and banana plants abound.

Stay tuned for more Key West tomorrow.
Thanks for reading
Margaret xxx

Day 378 – a little Heaven – Blue Heaven

July 21, 20153 Comments

Blue Heaven is a wonderful funky restaurant on the corner of Petrona and Thomas.

Blue Heaven – the colors are so Key West – Sooner or later this will be a painting but If you want to paint it feel free.

It’s been various things over the years including the place Hemingway had cock fights and a bordello. Now it’s an open air restaurant where u done with chickens under feet. The food is wonderful which is why I drew their eggs Benedict with pink Key West shrimp.

A band jammed under an umbrella.
Eggs Benedict with pink Key West shrimp.

There’s even a chicken graveyard as well as an artist selling some great chicken paintings.

The wait for a table can be long unless you are there by 9am but they have plenty of chairs to wait in. Sometimes there’s a band. Sometimes there isn’t.
The view from our table. LOTS of shade.

A funny sign on our table.
Andy’s Cabana across the street on Petrona. The home of the most delicious fish taco I have ever eaten. Also owned by the people at Blur Heaven.

One of the iguanas at our condo. I call him Mango. He poses for me most days. I talk to him and tell him to hold still I just want to take his picture. He poses for me. He’s not always benevolent. A 7-8 yr old boy was chasing him and throwing twigs at him. Mango whipped him with his tail. He’s got a very long tail. He’s at least 4 feet long. OUCH!

A key West Iguana tale. They are cold blooded animals. Occasionally it does get pretty cold in Key West. Iguana live in the trees. During one cold snap they started falling out of the trees. One of the locals decided to clean up the island and started throwing them in the back seat of his car. The car was warm. The iguanas woke up and tried to desperately claw their way out of his car. They also pooped in his car. The man was so shocked with his car load of wild wide awake iguanas that he wrecked his car. Poor guy got a ticket for wreck less driving!!

Moral of theses stories don’t mess with iguanas. Lol.

But if you want to paint Andys or Mango feel free.

One more chicken. This is a handsome one from Blue Heaven which is why I posted him. Happy chicken drawing!!

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 363 a Change of Plan

July 6, 2015July 6, 20156 Comments

the only things I seem to do consistently is make art and post on my blog.

While watching Bloodlines last nite I realized I could improve this by lifting some of the too orange orange and widening the area to the right of her eye. So I got up this morning and started scrubbing off color. You can lift off kilimanjaro but the paper gets roughed up. Wish I had painted her on fabriano the paper that takes a scrubbing and keeps on going. It’s super. Oh well.
The krinkley bit to the right of her eye is caused by the roughed up kilimanjaro.

Here’s the eye before I widened it by scrubbing.

I also darkened her background so her hair would not look so pasted on. Probably should have scrubbed it out too.

. Before surgery.

This is the one I was going to post today but instead an FYI!!! Cg. I scrubbed this one off with a mr clean type scrubber that I got at cheap joes. A pack is $2. It scrubbed the paper back to just about white. And since this is fabriano it’s still south as can be. I actually did paint the flesh color back before I took this pic. It was much whiter.

This is what she looked like before I scrubbed her off. I like her below the waist but NOT above. All that dark color on her cheek is G O N E!! Amazing.
Thanks for reading.

Margaret ️xxx

Day 361 – sometimes u should stop

July 4, 2015July 4, 2015Leave a comment

when you are ahead. But first

Happy Fourth of July! From Brian Andres storypeople.com Obviously he’s had some experiences.

Things were going well after the first forty minute session. But THEN

I started adding more purple and Orange. Maybe because I still had an hour and a half to paint and didn’t bring any extra paper. Oops.

Should have stopped at this point. Oops.

And now she’s too orange and too purple. I have plans to further mess her up but will wait till tomorrow to proceed with the painting torture.
More tomorrow or maybe I will throw her in the bin?! Stay tuned. Will Erica survive her torture or not?!

Update! I decided to torture her some more.

Lightened the purple around her left eye. Need to work inner nose some more. I also lightened the oranges on her left arm and her hand. She has fingers again. Thanks for reading.

MArgaret with only four more days till I have posted everyday for a year!! ️Xxx

Day 357 Henry Time!!!

June 30, 2015July 1, 2015Leave a comment

Always one of my favorite people to hang out with my grandson Henry. I meant to post these a few days ago before I got bogged down in elephant mania. Still have at least one more elephant in mind.

These were done Fathers Day Weekend so they have been in the sketchbook for a week waiting their turn.

He’s very good at holding still only when watching his favorite tv shows or when reading. Otherwise a perpetual motion machine.
Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 354 love that fabriano

June 27, 2015Leave a comment

If you love to use Watercolors and aspire to paint like Hmm Charles Reid or Fealin Lin or Thomas Schaller try some Fabriano cold press. It lifts back to almost white like a dream even staining colors.

This is 140# cold press. I don’t know that 300# cold press will lift like this but have no reason to think it won’t. Fabriano makes lovely paper. Their hot press as with most hot press paper is notorious for NOT lifting. Colors just don’t budge on it. You can literally push the paint around on the cold press with a flat brush. The whole highlight on her forearm was lifted when I raised her arm 1/4″ higher. And her nose and her brow and well I could go on.

This pose was quite a challenge. Foreshortened legs just are TOUGH!! Measure and measure and they can still go wrong. These did. Her thighs are too long and so were her calfs and feet. I managed to erase at least half an inch moving her feet up so she didn’t look so strange. I also moved the arm up about 1/4″. The upper arm was just too long.
TIP: My friend Ruth told me that when painting goes awry like the thighs did on this one to deemphasize them. Make the viewer look elsewhere which is why all those dark blue blobs are there. To lead your eye way from the offending body part.

This was after a half an hour of drawing and painting. I rather like this better than the finished one but oh well. I got her too blue. Added flesh tones to brighten the blues not thinking I had mixed Quin coral with opaque yellow ochre. OOPP!! Ah the trials of water color painting.

Here she is getting too blue. OOh well!!

Sometimes the chair is your favorite part. Lol!

Thanks for reading.

Margaret ️xxx

DY 341 Snuggling and Drawing

June 14, 20154 Comments

Zoe loves to snuggle. Drew this while we were watching CBS Sunday morning. Painted it while listening to Super Soul Sunday my two favorite shows. Noodler Creaper Ahab in my Stillman and Birn Alpha. Wish I had bought a zeta. The paper buckles a lot with washes but will flatten out somewhat when the book is closed. Also the paper does not let you live color without some pilling. No book is perfect but S&B tries hard.

Noodler creaper Ahab Carbon Black ink. Greys – Cerulean and Quin Sienna on the blue side darker grey Quin Sienna and Inathridone blue. Red fur Quin Sienna and Burnt umber w touches of Inathradone blue. Letters and border Quin red and cad orange. Background cerulean and Aureolin yellow. Scarf. Hmm all the above colors and mineral purple. Splattered with cerulean.

TIP!! Paint brushes. Thought you might like to see my favorite brushes, my kolinsky Isabeys. I have six now. – 2 4 6 8 and two big mops a 2 and an 8. They are Charles Reids favorite brushes.

If you think your paintings are too tight get a big mop or the biggest paint brush u can afford. Though I want a huge 12 or 14 Isabey they are very pricey but I am happy with my cheap Joes kolinsky Legend which is a 12 for $65.

Fealin Lin loves her Isabey mops. Lucky lady got hers off the reject table at Cheap Joes for $9 instead of the normal $65 ish.

Ink sketch stage.

Used negative space to keep the legs and nose in proportion. That’s looking at the shapes that surround the object like the hole in the coffee cup handle aka the inside shape that Zoe’s legs form almost a square.

Zoe posing.

And doing her favorite thing. Snuggling!! Couldn’t wait to paint this but hated dislodging her. Now she’s annoyed with me and staying in her bed. Sigh.
Fur soresto flea collar regular collar. She is such a princess. She loves to dress up. Newest scarf a triangle of amy butler fabric.

TIP: I love the bit of fur above the scarf. It’s done by painting lightly with grey. Letting it dry and adding more greys and Blues on top letting each layer dry.

The dark grey under the scarf is the Inathridone and Quin Sienna with dabs of mineral Violet added.

Details of furwith cerulean toothbrush splatter.
More fur and scarf details.
Thanks for reading!!

Margaret and Zoe xxx

Day 340 Life Modeling

June 13, 20158 Comments

Ilena

Really pleased with the way this painting turned out. Ulema the model liked it too. Done in an hour 40 minutes.

Sometimes the stars align. I picked the perfect easel almost square onto her and not at her feet or her head like sometimes happens. Colors Quin Sienna Quin red mineral Violet Inathradone blue. Flesh is Quin coral and a touch of yellow ochre. Hair is Quin Sienna Inathradone blue burnt umber.

Ilena

This is how Ilena looked after the first forty minute session. A fast pencil sketch. Unbelievably her head and body was almost the same size as her shoulders. Pays to measure. Started with bits of cerulean.