Category: Stillman and birn

Day 1053 – Politics 

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Hard to avoid it today. It’s all over the tv the radio Facebook twitter. I don’t know about you but the last few days have been riveting. THIS IS WATERGATE!! 14×20 Mixed Media 

Enough to get Rachel Maddow back from her sick bed where she had been for almost two weeks.  

I got the brilliant idea to do this one on arches #140 cold press. BIG a mistake. Hard to write on with any ink pen or marker I had.  

I finally picked up a Japanese brush pen I thought had permanent ink. I tested it on a scrap of paper.  It didn’t run. 

Fast forward to all the heavy lines in this sketch are done with that brush pen especially on Dan Coats. 

When I started painting him he turned into a gray runny mess. This was supposed to be a watercolor.  EEEKKKK.  

I dug into my mixed media art supply grove. Caran d’ache Neocolor ii to the rescue. I started coloring. I lightened him up. The only person that didn’t have some runs was Comey. 😳

A lot of the letters ran. The names!! Eeeekkk. On this rough paper there was no clean edge. Tried a grease pencil which works great in my sketchbooks. NOPE TOO rough. 

Got out a white gel pen on the letters.  Better!! Got out a paint pen. Even better. More outlining with the Lamy Safari. 

Done. Whew. Not what I had in mind BUT finally pleased with it. 

Margaret planning another but it will be on hot press paper. Xoxoxo the news is calling. 

Day 1052 – Take a Hike Mr President Key West #3

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Found a few more that I hadn’t posted. The Shark cruise. Guess they won’t be around. No clean water. It’s already pretty bad in the Gulf. 

All this would be underwater. 

And this fun whacky restaurant on the waterfront. 

And my favorite wacky restaurant Blue Heaven.  Such delicious food and awesome chickens.  never tire of the crazy chickens in Key West. 

And my other favorite spot Louie’s backyard eatting on the water enjoying delicious Caribbean breezes. All gone with global warming. 

Sad that it would disappear. 

My sis in law who doesn’t believe in global warming would be very said at Key Wests submergence beneath the waters. Here favorite spot in the world. 

One of my favorites too. 

Busy day. Off I go. Setting up for a flower painting. If only they stay alive long enough. 

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 1051 Take a Hike Mr President #3

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And what about where I live? Will the houses along the Savannah be in the Savannah?! 

Will downtown Augusta be underwater?! And the island across from me already underwater sometimes. Will it be gone?! 

Will the Savannah be 600 yards wide here instead of 300?! 

I keep asking. 

Nobody can answer me. 

And you know 45 doesn’t care about our little spot of gorgeous earth. 

Will 

It 

All

Be gone or 

Bigger ?! 

Or  what?!  

Ttyl Rachel Maddow is back tonite. I knew she wouldn’t be able to miss the recent NSA leak. Off to shower so I will be ready 

Xoxoxox

Day 1044 – That Dirty Dried out Palette

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Now that I am home for a day or two I wanted to use my Ted Nuttall palette. This is actually Teds Palette. 

 

All those lovely transparent colors. 

And it helped with my procrastination mode getting started painting the Raisin and Harley painting 

which is finally transferred to paper and ready to paint. 

Of course my Palette has dried out and filthy. They always dry out!!   It needed revival and cleaning. Another way to procrastinate!!! The spray bottle was not getting the job done. The colors were lumpy and nasty. 

So how did I get it clean and get the paint smooth and ready to use!?

First I sprayed it and tried stirring each color with its own tooth pick. That did not do much for the lumps. I wanted to paint!!! 

I got out my trusty old palette knife. It has a tiny blade on it compared to most so it fit perfectly in the wells of my porcelain palette. 

I used a jillion Kleenex wiping wells out where there was just a dribble of old hard paint. NO LOTION On those Kleenex. 

I started bending my antique palette knife in some of the paint. Oh NO!! I kept going. What palette knife is supposed to last forever!? 

I decided to rearrange the colors. Here and there I had added colors I MUST have to the basic Nuttall Palette like Cerulean, Andrews Blue, Daniel Smith Piemonite and Green Apaptite. 

 The Kleenex and the palette knife left crusts of color in the corners. 

Then I realized I could fill the wells with water and used an old brush to swirl out the bits left in corners. Hallelujah clean wells at last. 

I used a sharpie to rewrite the colors on the edges of the wells and I even have a few leftover slots. 

So it’s new clean and lovely at this point. 

What I learned while cleaning my palette. 

  •  Wear rubber gloves while cleaning your palette unless you want to have colored fingernails.  😱
  • Those dollar store Kleenex with lotion have something wierd in them. They gave me a rash when I used them on my nose. 😱😱 Now gone. 🤗🤗🤗
  • Now I know why some people have stacks of these palettes. It might be easier to just buy a new palette than clean the old one out. 

Margaret who has some painting to do. Xoxox and no more reasons to procrastinate because I even cleaned up the studio and moved to the summer one aka the kitchen table and island. 

Oh wait I need to use the glass cleaner on the winter studio table. It’s looking hazy. Procrastinate procrastinate.  I need some flowers to paint!!  

🌼🌻🥀🌷🌷🌸🌺🌼🌻🥀🌹🌷🌸🌺

Day 1040 – Canyons – Blowing Rock! 

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Mike and I had lunch at the Canyons in Blowing Rock because as she said the view of the mountains was spectacular from dining room.  The food was delicious too and the service was great. 

Spring green was the key color out the window covering the trees and the mountains. 

Painted with Charles Reid palette leftovers. He only uses 12 colors. All Holbein.  The greens are hookers and Oxide of chromium. He also likes cobalt violet. Uses all of those a lot on flowers.  

I guess I need to do a sample of them so you can see the colors. Just normal old colors. No Quins though I added my favs Quin gold and burnt orange which I sub for ochre and burnt sienna at times. 

I kept trying to get a pic of this interesting guy when he was sitting at the bar inside but he was back lit which does not work in a photo. Don’t u love all the trash can background?!  

Funnny story. I went to the trash cans when we got in the car to throw some junk out that I pick up like a pack rat and guess who was there!? The guy. And a waitress who had been watching me draw she told him to pose for me because I was a really good artist. Lights not great but it might work.  I have more of him not smiling. Do t like painting teeth showing. 

Should have told him to take off his hat but that would have ruined his charm. I did get him to turn around but still no light. 

The Mountains from the porch. 

In the restaurant from our table.  What a view. Love this place. 

Ttyl Margaret xoxoxo

Day 1023 Raisin and her horses 

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Visiting my friend Raisin in Bristol TN where she lives on top of a mountain. She has two Freisians. 

This is her daughter Kendal with her horse Bo and her tiny miniature Pomeranian when the ferrier was her yesterday. 


Raisin and her horse Harley while he’s getting shod. Just the most beautiful horses. 

Drawn on location with a Lamy Safari on arches cold press 280# 

Colors used cerulean, yellow ochre,  burnt sienna and umber, ultramarine blue, cad red light and Quin rose. Off to paint. Ttyl Margaret xoxo

Day 1010 Bits and Bobs

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I painted this a while back and never got around to posting him.  An older gentleman enjoying his kindle or his iPad in the window of the Inner Bean. I have painted that light several times. It alway eludes me. MAybe tomorrow when I meet Marsha there forBrunch?! 

Ted Nuttalls transparent palette. 

That light. I coated it with Quin gold first. Then cerulean.  Probably the color that got me into trouble. It’s opaque.  I think the shadow is Daniel Smith piemonite with ultramarine blue. Love piemonite.  

Two days til Boone!!! And Charles Reid.  Ttyl Margaret xoxoxo

Day 998 Oh My Two More Days Painting PCM

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Spent yesterday hitting the art stores and taking photographs for possible future paintings at Ponce City Market.  

It’s a HUGE rehabbed old Sears building on Ponce de Leon near the Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. Whoever designed it kept much of the funkiness of the old building keeping the floors and the huge support columns and the ibeams in the floors. 


The two panoramas give a 360 degree view of the space which is jammed packed with the smells of the 20 plus upscale chef run restaurants that allow you and your friends many delicious choices of food which you eat in the open areas. 

Outside eating area is a huge interesting place called the Shed which is an enormous concrete beam structure surrounded by restaurants ok one side and stores on the other. I think it’s new construction but not sure. I really need to sit down and draw it becAuse it’s wonderful to look at.  

The store side of the Shed.  

Sunday there is an art market in the shed. Going to check that out tomorrow but since it’s Easter thinking it’s not open. 

Keep taking photos of a few places that just appeal to my eye. This Caribbean food place El Super Pan  is just delightfully funky with its purple lit metal overhang. Someplace I have an unpainted sketch of this place. 

And my favorite golden dragon Chinese restaurant.  I have painted this twice. Love that dragon. 

This couple sat down inches from me at the same table Aron f one of the columns between me and the object of my attention. The golden dragon column. Yes there were other tables to sit at but no they had to block my view.  Irritated with the self involved duo I snapped their photo and immortalized the French Fry couple. 

Here’s the sketch I had been doing.

I love going upstairs and taking photos of the first floor over the railing. 


That’s how I snapped the photo for this painting called Looking Down which was recently juried into the Anderson Center for the Arts Show which is considered a coup in South Carolina. 


One of the appeals of Ponce city Market besides the delicious food are the masses of people and the odd interesting architectural elements like the large yellow and black arrow in the upper right. 

I think you could find a life time of paintings on the environs of PCM aka Ponce City Market. Something about this one. The two guys one big one little trudging off across the light from the doors. 
Sooner or later I will get a food pic of this bar. Maybe on my big camera not my phone. I have two hundred or so photos there. 

A trip to PCM is not complete without drooling over the delicious candy shop 

And my personal favorite the St Germain a PArisian themed patisserie loaded with all things Parisian – macaroons, breads, small crispy meringues, real marshmallows and cases of decadent gorgeous goodies. 

Trying to resist the lure of PCM today a Sketchers paradise but there are eggs to dye and Easter prep to be done. 

Ttyl 

Margaret loving Atlanta even when it took me an hour and 15 min to drive 4 miles  from Trader Joe’s to the house. Xoxoxo

Day 988 Wow 13 more days

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Til the big 1000!! 

Since 13 is a mystics number surrounded by bad luck impending done a journal page on palm reading seems like an appropriate post.   The assignement this week was to completely cover a two page spread with masking tape. Then study a palm reading chart and react to that. I am not exactly a girl who believes in palm Reading so this was a little difficult for me. 

I pondered the assignment of reading your palms for 4-5 days. Then I did all these pages in less than an hour.  I was flipping thru the old Bazaar magazine looking for images to collage on another page and found the red headlines. I thought perfect. I glued them on. The grey was a scrap from ripping out collage items for the other page. Perfect color. 


I literally pulled a couple of pieces of somerset collage paper out of this heap and traced my hands and glued them down quickly.  Then I started scribbling with Prismacolor artstiks and gel pens. 

Next I stamped some old Teesha Moore stamps that I had for years and never used. I still had the third page blank. I lettered with the paint pen and drew some arrows. Then it popped into my head to do an X-ray hand for the scar page-write down all your scars-because some scars are visible but some you can only see in an X-ray. Still have to journal those. 

This is a WIP. It will change. I got some transparent purple ink to paint on it just not had time. And I have a list of things to still try out. Here are what I brain stormed. 

Yellow gold aura. Lightening bolts

Light green on x ray hand thalo blue thinned on background

Outline letters in yellow? 

Green glow 

Heart Malagra

Anyway time to get going. Busy day. 

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 985 Some Rachel time

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A good way to start a Monday!


This ones a little busy but it was a busy day on Thursday. For that matter so was Friday. 

Oddly I noticed Rachel looks a little tired in this sketch. If I hadn’t deleted it I would go back and look at it to see if she was. Those kinds of things turn up in sketches even if you don’t notice them while you are watching. 


I actually think I might like this better unpainted. Oh well. As you can tell the news continues to astound me. The spy novel keeps building and building. 

As Chuck Lorre posted after Big Bang “our best hope to save the day is an eighty year old slab of beef jerky from Arizona(McCain) and his trusty sidekick Scarlett O’Hara(Lindsey Graham)!!


Off to bed. Ttyl. 

Margaret xoxoxo