Day 559 Rue de Renard

January 12, 20162 Comments

Opposite the Cafe La Pause Beaubourg near the Hôtel de Ville in the Marais. Also down the street from the Pompidou where we had spent the morning.

Absolutely loved the art in the Pompidou. What a massive building. With its insides on the outside odd looking among the late 19th century Hausmann style building. And this day so hot inside. No cold weather when we were in Paris during November. A very muggy 70-80 degrees with 91% humidity. 😳

I was impressed with the great masses of humanity walking the streets of the Marais.

People everywhere and almost to a man or woman dressed in black. Evidently after September one must wear black in France!! And most had their faces down reading their phones.

TIP: I always take a just in case photo of my drawings as I do them. I actually popped the original photo of this into Waterlogue to see what it would do and tried painting it that way. Not easy since the colors in the ap are not normal watercolors. But fun to try.

Colors used!! Painted with my travel pallette. Cerulean, Quin gold and Quin sienna on the buildings. Quin magenta, burnt umber and Inathrodone for the darks and watered down for the side walks and greys.

Red is cad red mixed w Quin coral to brighten it. I was too lazy to go dig up my Quin red. Lol.

A little hookers green and some phtalo blue.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 553 – Montmartre

January 7, 20164 Comments

Do you like it better with the red Moulin Rouge or all ink?!

I really have to quit drawing these in my sketchbook. Somebody is already asked to buy it or a print. So now I have to draw it over. WHY do I do these things?!

Carbon pen with carbon platinum ink. Great fine point pen but sometimes it leaks BLOBS On your just drawn paintings. Sigh. BIG blobs.

I have a French Seine riverbank landscape I was working on yesterday. Yes. You guessed it. BIG BLACK blob. No warning.

It also leaks into the cap which can cause problems. Sigh. What’s a girl to do?!

I know. White out?! 😜

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 552 More Brevard!

January 5, 2016January 4, 2016Leave a comment

Main and Broad in Brevard. I think it’s the town hall or the court house?! Watercolor, Noodler Konrad w D’artrementis Document Brown in strathmore Mixed Media 500 sketchbook.

I drew this sitting out near O P Taylors on Broad which has a good view of the court house.

The tree and building were still decorated for Christmas. I love that people no longer zip the decorations into storage the day after Christmas.

A great view of the mountains as Broad Street drops off toward Asheville.
My biggest dislike about the Strathmore Mixed Media 500 journal is that it’s very difficult to make lay down flat giving a large shadow down the spine. Not very attractive in the middle of a painting!

I guess I need to flatten it on the scanner but so much easier to use the cellphone for a quick pic.

Colors used. Cerulean sky w a touch of cobalt. Red w yellow ochre for brick colors. Burnt umber and Inathrodone for shadows, roofs, truck and street. Hookers green w Inathrodone for the for tree.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx who is off to the Columbia Art Museum for the Georgia O’Keefe exhibit.

Day 551 – Sapphire Valley NC

January 4, 2016January 4, 2016Leave a comment

Out the Back door. Watercolor, Noodler Konrad w D’artrementis Document Brown in strathmore Mixed Media 500 sketchbook. .

Spent the last week in Sapphire Valley at my sons trout farm that he bought last fall. A truly lovely spot. I sketched this as I sat on the back deck on one of the few sunny days we had.

The Thompson River, a trout river, runs through the property with at least two waterfalls. When you fall asleep at night you can here the river rushing by. It’s surrounded by stands of hard woods and pine trees.

This was painted with my whisky painters watercolor box and waterbrushes.

Colors used. Cerulean sky. Grey is Inathrodone and burnt umber with touches of hooker green for the moss on the trees. River. Hookers, cerulean and yellow ocher.

Rhododendrons hookers and cad yellow.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 546 – Sycamores

December 29, 20152 Comments

Line the streets of Paris. The French like to prune them into odd shapes. I don’t like trees that Americans prune like this but in France there are so many I grew to like them. They line the Seine River and many streets.

In the 1880s it became fashionable to take the air but one did not want to get a tan so trees were planted and pruned to indulge this whim especially in Paris.

Colors used. Leaf French ochre w Quin sienna and Quin burnt orange. Cerulean. Splattered with whatever soup was on my palette. Strathmore 500 mixed media journal, Konrad Noodler, carbon platinum black ink.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 537 – Finally

December 22, 2015December 22, 20152 Comments

Figured out the title page for my France travel journal. I filled up two Strathmore 500 mixed Media journals but still have a lot of pages to paint in what I call my coloring book.

The light was bad on the boat for painting so I mostly drew with my Noodler Konrads while I was on board.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret making headway in her journals finally. 😘

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November 19, 2015November 20, 2015Leave a comment

Sketched during our dinner – Could be called “Waiting for the Bill!”

Jean Cocteau’s self portrait

We actually sat below some original Jean Cocteau sketches in a restaurant we ate at called Bouef Sur la Toit. I have been meaning to share his sketches with you but the wifi on the boat made it impossible. So today seems like a good day to do it.

Beef on the Roof which was a Paris jazz hot spot of the glitterati called Les Enfants Terribles back in the 20-40s. Coco Channel was a member of this circle as were Charlie Chaplin, Arturo Rubenstein, Josephine Baker, Maurice Ravel and Maurice Chevalier, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Albert Camus, Igor Stravinsky to name a few..Bouef launched the careers of singer Juliet Greco and singer/song writer Charles Trennet.

The restaurant on Rue des Ecoles…call for reservations…great food and music too!

Whimsical – Three Men in a Tub?? Notice even the great Cocteau made mistakes!!!

Mistinguett was one of the most successful French performers of her time

Coco Channel I think

Another Chanel?

Probably Chanel????

Very rudementary but I like the lines…and the goat!!! Wonder if hes up on the roof too???

More about Le Bouef Sur La Toit ripped from the menu!!!

Day 496 – 🇫🇷🇫🇷 The French remember🇫🇷🇫🇷

November 18, 2015Leave a comment

The Canadian D Day cemetery at Bény Sur Mer. It seems appropriate to post it today with the fighting in Paris. War again in France. Our guides grandfather was a French resistance fighter killed by the SS when he was caught.

Today I heard a silly journalist on CNN say Parisians were not used to fighting in their streets. If you asked our guide she would tell you they still remember WW2. Bullet holes from WW2 still pock mark the buildings. The church at Ranville was full of bullet holes and huge chunks of it were missing from WW2 fighting.

🇫🇷 The French remember with three museums to the D Day invasions. This is the Canadian museum at Juno Beach were 5000 Canadians died.

🇫🇷 There’s one at the American invasions site and one at Pegasus Bridges were British paratroopers had to seize a bridge BEFORE the D Day invasion.

🇫🇷Our guide’s grandmother found bodies of 132 Canadian POWs who were murdered and buried in a mass grave in her yard. They still find WW2 bodies routinely in Normandy. So yes they remember!!

Stay tuned for more Frenxh sketches. There are at least 33 of them. 😳

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 496 – 🇫🇷🇫🇷 The French remember🇫🇷🇫🇷

November 18, 2015Leave a comment

🇫🇷 The French remember with three museums to the D Day invasions. This is the Canadian museum at Juno Beach were 5000 Canadians died.

🇫🇷 There’s one at the American invasions site and one at Pegasus Bridges were British paratroopers had to seize a bridge BEFORE the D Day invasion.

🇫🇷Our guide’s grandmother found bodies of 132 Canadian POWs who were murdered and buried in a mass grave in her yard. They still find WW2 bodies routinely in Normandy. So yes they remember!!

Day 479 Two days to Paris 😳

November 2, 2015November 3, 2015Leave a comment

Well at least we leave then. Lol. Be in Paris by 2 pm Thursday.

Been raining cats and dogs do I am posting all of the family dogs but one today.

A quick sketch of my lab Honey. She walked off before I finished it but decided to paint it this am. Painted with ultramarine blue and burnt umber.
Grant – my sons newest put bull. Drawn with a Lamy Vista using Carbon Paltinum Black ink.

Drawing a new dog is always a challenge. To top it off he’s black and white. I smeared the ink with my finger to try to make his black more solid. I actually drew him three times before I was happy with him.

I wish I could give u some dog drawing tips but the only one I can give u is that a dog like a person or a horse is just geometric shapes. Check out Richard Schmidts wonderful Alla Prima book which is what he says about drawing anything. They are all just shapes.