Category: Portrait

Day 958 A relaxing Sunday 

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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 

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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 

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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 

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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

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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 943 The Two Dowagers

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Upper Broad Street used to be lined with these late Victorian houses. Now there are only three left. They look tired but not quite derelict. These two stand by themselves like two old ladies. 

The light was great yesterday –  and the houses were bathed in the bright winter sun which lit them like a spot light. 
I added the guy walking by. He’s really just an oval, a rounded triangle for the body, and a couple of strokes for legs and feet. Ditto for the arm. 

I coated the houses w a very light Quin gold. Makes them look sunny I think. 

Colors used-Sky. Hmm peacock blue?! Hookers green and hematite, Quin gold, cerulean, burnt umber and ultramarine, Quin burnt orange, vermilion. 

The trees are done w a watery soup of cerulean and Quin burnt orange to give the effect of bare winter limbs. 

The biggest thing that gives this look is using my small squirrel mop. You cannot get to picky with it. An #8 I think. 

In a Stillman and Birn Alpha w 92 pages which means they are thin. And they are wavy causing puddling.  Not sure I like that but will continue on since it cost a pretty penny $27 from Amazon. Hoping they will flatten out as they dry. 

Drawn w a Lamy EF loaded with permanent Lexington gray ink. 

Ttyl 

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 941 A few more als and that urban sketch 

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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 937 Its Saturday 

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Sarah 24×30″ Acrylic alla prima. 

Her last modeling session before she moves to Los Angelos this week. We will miss her. She had such a sweet pensive look today. Maybe she was thinking about her big move. LA is a long way from Augusta Ga.  

The painting. Was done in an hour or so. I liked it when I left. Now I am not so sure but that’s life isn’t it?! Took a while and several restarts to decide how to paint her but after that it was easy. I turned the panel one way and then the other. Finally painted her vertically. 

She was in such a nice position with her legs extend I wished I had a big square to paint her on but oh well only a rectangle. 

Colors used titanium white pyrrole red and nickel azo gold for skin. Highlights are primary yellow mixed with the skin color. Shadows are Winsor purple added to the same mix. 

I used some thalo blue and that’s all the colors. 

Here she is at first break. Forty minutes.  

Last session I drew this large ink drawing of Sarah on a piece of mat board. It’s Sarah’s goodby present. Took about 15 minutes. 

Oops I forgot her hand and left leg. Oh well. 

Drawn with my Pentel brush pen and I bled the ink with a wet Winsor Newton flat fake mongoose brush for shading. 

It was a big crowd today. People were even sitting on the floor. Oh it’s good to be young. They were rewarded with Happy buttons for their floor positions. 

Al Beyer’s beautiful very large oil 3×4′. A great expression. 

Jeremy’s beautiful conte crayon sketch. 

Kathe’s wispy sketch. Love the wispiness of it. Conte crayon. 

Here it is before the background. 

Tom Needham’s beautiful watercolor. Background is Daniel Smith Quin coral. 

Marilyn Hartley’s lovely pencil charcoal and ink sketch. Wispy was in today. She really did a great face on this one. Looks just like Sarah. 

Another of Kathe Dennis’ lovely sketches charcoal this time. 

AC Daniels great oil though for some reason he later wiped out her leg.  

Coachs charcoal. Always a great job. And interesting. 

Rachel’s branching out. Pastel on arches. 

Fred still in his Mondigliani mood. 

Dawns sweet face of Sarah. 


Last but not least our lovely Iliana’s painting. Great colors. Wonderful face. 

And that’s it for today. There were More that got away without a photo. 
Ttyl 

Margaret ready for a longggg nap. Xoxoxo who sold TEN paintings last nite. Hurrah!!! And the show has a month to go!!! 

Day 935 Urban sketching at the Augusta Museum and a cartoon. 

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Sunday was a free day at the local museum. I had not been since it moved to its new building and it’s just remarkable. The Augusta room is so well done. The train that all my kids loved is still there to walk thru but now inside out of the weather. 

This is drawn from a display of the Stallings Island Archaic period.  

As a girl my friends and I volunteered at the museum and worked on the original arrowhead exhibit for the archaic period. We always had fun working after school at the old museum 

I did mean to draw something else on this page but forgot so I filled it in with the notes on the Stallings Islnd culture. OOPPS. The yellow is. YOU guessed it. Quin gold. With cerulean 

There’s an Augusta Trolley car too. AC and I had to check them both out. Very fun. Love be the bright yellow trolley. Going to have to go back when I can stay longer.  

 The 70s exhibit


An old water pumper. I drew it but still have to paint it. Maybe today?!  

My sketchbookskool homework a Day in the Life. Should have done a two page spread because I ran out of room. Oh well it’s done. 

If you want to try this make a list of your days activities OR just make blocks and fill them in. 

Pitt pens pyrrole red Quin gold cerulean hematite green. Stillman and Birn mixed media Zeta. 

Ttyl yoga time soon. 

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 934 Urban sketching and a cartoon 

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I drew this apartment building from the porch of the Partridge Inn last Wednesday. It was bathed in the late afternoon sun. I don’t know if I captured it but it’s my other favorite sketch from yesterday. 

Color Quin cold and Quin coral on the building w a violet in the shadows.  Hematite green bushes w ultramarine blue. Sky cerulean. 

Sketchbookskool homework.  Draw a cartoon. 

This is our beloved art professor Al saying his quips that keep us laffing and coming back for more of his teaching. I am starting year two. Some people in Advanced Painters have been there for twenty years. His New Yorkness is still there all these years later. 

Some more Al-isms. 
Looks like a gorilla painted this. 

Don’t mess it up to fix it. Never happens. 
You owe me some time. 
You need to leave room 140

There’s a world outside room 140

This is not a democracy. 

Steal from the best. 

“These two areas of your painting need to talk to each other”. 

 “Get working. Stop talking”. 

 “Don’t let me paint your painting for you. You decide”. 

  “Seven years he has been here and he has never done anything I’ve asked him to do”. (Like in a way he is sort of proud of the guy for that)

 “So do you think you have another painting in ya?”

 “Work on this for your next 20 paintings”.

Kawfee 
“You got it!” (I.e.do we understand?)

 “You are in danger of finishing this painting”. 

 ” It’s your painting; I don’t want to micromanage it”
“Be thinking about your next painting” ”
“Keep it fresh!

“Don’t get too.close.to me….or might be I don’t want to get too close to anyone, I might be coming down with something.”

“I am very tired.today” ” I have to go crack my back”.

Stop.talking….start painting…….and/or. “Get to work”!😕🎨
Have the same person paint this side.  
Watch those edges. 

Big brush strokes. 

Warms and cools make a happy painting 
Complimentary Pairs. 
Brush strokes 
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.