Day 1163 Excitement

January 11, 2018January 11, 201814 Comments

This letter from WordPress Discover was in my in box this am. Too exciting. 🤗

I’ve selected your site (https://margaretmccarthyhunt.com/) for Discover (https://discover.wordpress.com); our team has promoted one of your posts in the past, but we also think your entire site is great, with new art frequently posted, so we wanted to designate it as a recommended site pick.Your site will appear on Discover on January 12. Thanks so much for continuing to publish with us and happy 2018!🤗👍🏻🎉

🔘Now about that picture. A remembrance of our adventure at the Center for the Puppetry Arts a big hit with Henry and I. The troupe does an amazing job. Extremely professional and a very well done show.

The painting is done with Ted Nuttalls transparent palette in my Stillman and Birn Alpha drawn with one of my Lamy’s.

The museum is incredible. A great Jim Henson section. Yes Kermit and Miss Piggy are there. And the Fraggles. Historical puppets from around the world. Indian shadow puppets. l Lots of interactive child friendly exhibits.

A Chines puppet I think. Scar from Lion King. The large puppets from War Horse.

Just a great place. Henry wanted to go again and see the Gingerbread Boy show. We should have. So much easier than Fernbank.

Put the Center for the Puppetry Arts on your must see Atlanta list. You will love it. Ask Henry!!

Margaret xoxoxox whose excited about WordPress Discover!! Yeah

Day 1153 Make that 502!!

January 1, 2018Leave a comment

Pretty exciting news to me. I would like to thank and welcome all my new followers. Did I did I do that already!? Probably but hey thanks again!!

And did I say Happy New Year!!!

So time to post some art. This is Peachtree about the 1400 block right near the Center for the Puppetry Arts. Not yet painted. I was on my easy from Aam Flaxs to Dick Block/Utrecht store.

What color there is was done with a tea bag. Had no idea it would color it so much just painting. If it gets too soupy it will run thru the binding in my Stillman and Birn but then so will watercolor.

Another blank page colored with my teabag. Kinda fun. Try it.

Margaret whose getting three free hours and a babysitter so I gotta run.

Happy New Years and thanks again for all the follows. Hugs xoxoxo

Day 1128 Cheap Joes Hurricane Harvey Relief Program

September 3, 2017Leave a comment

100% of your donation thru Joes goes to Hurricane Harvey relief plus Joe will kick in a percentage of sales and you don’t have to buy a thing.

Joe dressed as Theo Van Gogh giving us his Van Gogh presentation A real treat if you get a chance to see it.

Boone NC

I was not aware of the fact that Joe Miller founder of Cheap Joes takes charity work so seriously til John Salimen shared with me that after every Hurricane like Katrina and Sandy Joe goes thru their customer database and sends gift certificates to any customer that lived in the disaster area.

Joe recently got a Humitarian award from the American Watercolor Society because of his charity work. He employees mentally handicapped people and then brags on them when you tour the warehouse. It makes them glow with pride. Just a lovely man.

Which is the reason I ALWAYS recommend Cheap Joe’s when people ask where to buy their art supplies.

Soooo

Here’s how you do it!!!

Think I will get some of that fabriano hot press I have been wanting while I am at it.

And while you are there treat yourself to a Cheap Joes class. You will get treated like a Prince or Princess and have a lovely time.

Ttyl

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 1118 – that iconic view

August 23, 2017August 23, 2017Leave a comment

Wish we had some views like this in Augusta. Sigh.

Every time I go to Trader Joe’s on Monroe I always stare at it for a few minutes.

It’s looking over the Grady High football field toward Piedmont Park.

Those tall buildings never fail to fascinate.

Lamy Safari Noodlers Eelskin Black Stillman and Birn Alpha. Ted Nuttalls transparent palette plus cerulean

Hugs Margaret whose missing the moms who used to run Inner Bean. Xoxox

Sunday – Jour ??

August 3, 2017Leave a comment

No idea if this published. I did try yesterday and Sunday.
This posted yesterday on that OTHER blogsite I have…now HOW did I do that. I used the computer so I wouldnt do that but I did anyway. DUH-I know its the cold I keep trying to get…Scratchy throat sneezy and a drip that comes and goes…gone today…wheres my vitamin A but I have a headache. SIGH!!

Happy Sunday!!!

Which one do you like best?? I think the second one?!! For me at least.

Catching up diet journal pages and only have 6 more days til I can eat more food. YEAH!! Good news is I am down 23 pounds. AND even better news I can resist the treats like cake and cookies. HURRAH…and that basket of bread at Carrabas the other nite…did I say I DEARLY LOVE bread?? That said I dont think it loves me…my joints would get a flu like ache two three times a week before I gave it up…havent had it since. Another HURRAH!!!

This one is done with Winsor Newton Markers and some regualr watercolors. It was a pill . Mostly because there is so much paint in those WN WC Markers that they will leak into the other colors if you are not careful.

The “title” is colored with Tombows a dark blue on and caran dache neocolor ii crayons… a bright orange and then the brightest yellow I had…still not bright enough but OH well I am done…only messed with this two three hours…

I finally got a piece of ledger paper and glued it over the title of the page…I really had wanted orange letters but that was NOT to be. Ledger paper does not make bright colors sadly but does add a nice texture and a change of pace.

I also had hand lotion on my hands when I started painting this which acted like a resist…eeekkk…finally got around that by wiping it with a kleenex…not one with hand lotion either lol…

Anyway coming down with a cold..another new way to loose weight?? NO I refuse…loading up on vitamins…

Day 1102 Urban Sketching Atlanta and the burbs

August 1, 2017August 1, 20174 Comments

Sort of house hunting in Atlanta. 800 sq feet for $209k. Think extremely dilapidated in the outside. But so adorable.

Not easy to do since where I would like to live my house would cost $1.3 million like this one down the street from my sons house in Oakhurst. Maybe I should become a realtor?!

Love Petite Marche in Kirkwood. These will get painted soon.

Hard to get the paint out with a 3&5 yr old grandchild around. They want to paint too. Oops.

Cute little fixer upper in Pine Lake. Has tons of very dark knotty pine that needs to be painted white. And a disaster of a side porch with jalousy windows that will no longer open or shut. Eeekkk. Keep looking?!

Off to walk the dog and have a taste of living urban style in a walkable neighborhood. Then more house looking.

Drawn with my Lamys in a Stillman and Birn Zeta.

Ttyl Margaret xoxoxox

Day 1095 My Flabrador

July 25, 2017Leave a comment

My sweet flabrador Honey. She's fat as a butterball. She's very fond of food especially bread and cookies. Pumpkin pie. NEVER Leave any on the counter if you want to eat it later.

Yesterday drawing at Starbucks all my pens were empty. Huh. Four of them. So I drew with pencil. Today yet to fill them tried a 6B charcoal a la Alex Powers. It loved this Stillman and Birn Alpha. Unlike the pencil it does not repel watercolor.

There's actually a screwed up pen sketch hidden on the left of my grandson.

Labs are hard to paint. The highlights are almost blue. I slapped combos of mixed burnt umber and ultramarine in the dark areas and bled out the edges w clean water for the highlights. Shadows are cerulean and Quin burnt sienna.

Ttyl Margaret who had another busy day xoxoxo

Day 1069 Mary Alice Munroe

June 27, 2017Leave a comment

Went to a great book talk at AB Browns today by Mary Alice Monroe for her newest book in her Beach House series the quintessential summer beach book based on Isle of Palms near Charleston.

Though I have read some of the books with the turtles in them has no idea they are really to educate us about her latest passion. I tend to read the story for the story not to find hidden meanings.

That said I always enjoy them.

The latest book is about pelican rescue her latest passion. The raptor center even named a pelican that she rescued after her Mary Ann so I decided to draw Mary Ann to fill up the page.

The notes are just things that she said about her passions pelicans shorebirds.

She’s also an excellent palmetto bug stomper. One was running around the room the talk was held in. It’s a skill u acquire when you got to SC Low country beaches. I won’t tell you how I know.

The lunch was excellent. HEirloom tomato soup.

Shrimp and grits and a peach cheese cake for desert.

Ttyl. Off to Atlanta! Thanks for stopping by!! Margaret xoxoxoxo

Day 1061 -how many more?! And a beach party!!

June 17, 2017June 17, 2017Leave a comment

Still quite a few!!! 🤗We have no shortage of talking heads in this country. They offer great drawing practice. If you can pause your tv it even takes the pressure off of trying to draw them quickly.

And all they do is talk. And talk and talk.

And pass a lot of laws that half the country don’t like no matter which side you are on making the other half is unhappy!

The Decatur Businesses Beach Party in downtown Decatur on the square. Ponce de Leon became a giant beach!! Free beach buckets, beach balls and balloons oh and washable tattoos for all!!

An amazing stilt walker. The kids had no idea how he could be that tall! Several people on top of each other was their best guess.

And there he goes legging it down the block or should I say stilting down the block?!

And a rare shot of the old Decatur Courthouse with sun on its face. It usually sits in the shade. Bytw this is now an art gallery.

Off to play with my grandkids. Hugs!!

Day 1056 – the View at Breakfast

June 12, 2017June 13, 2017Leave a comment

We always stay at the Country Inn and suites when we take a class at Cheap Joes. The people are lovely even if the breakfast is not so great. The view from the breakfast area and the staff make up for the lack of the great food. After class Mike and I frequently go prop our feet up and rock the afternoon away drinking a glass of wine and looking at this view of Howard’s Knob the mountain in the painting.

Of course on a good morning we got to share our breakfast with Charles and the ever adorable Judy Reid. Always a morning treat. They are so lovely! Judy will regale is with stories of the adventures of Chuck and Judy.

There are quite a few after 60 plus years of marriage. Like the time they almost were lost at sea helping a friend sails 50 foot Chesapeake bug eye catch when a storm hit them off of Charleston. Judy and Charles were the only ones who knew anything about sailing. So glad they survived!!

Painted with Charles Reid’s palette.

Off to hem those long overdue curtains. Wonder if my sewing machine still works?! Margaret xoxoxox