Day 1040 – Canyons – Blowing Rock! 

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 1035 Its about a dog! 

I took a great photo of my friend Raisins white English retriever Lucy lounging around on the window seat. 

 This is a small practice painting for bigger painting. Note to self LOOSE THOSE EDGES!  It’s very hard to do a loose painting when it’s so small.  

It all starts with a great photo of a gorgeous dog. 

Click the link for a short video on how to draw your own dog. 

Think I will draw Zoe. It’s been a while and she’s curled up ready to be drawn.  

Colors used Winsor yellow, ds carmine, cobalt violet, mineral violet, oxide of chromium, viridian?, cerulean, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, cad orange, cad red light or scarlet lake. 

Ttyl Margaret who had to get walking again. Been on vacay TOO along now. Xoxox

Day 1028 More Flowers 

My best of the three attempts I made painting this bouquet. I thought painting white flowers was hard till I did this one. Those yellow flowers were a pain. 

Funny story. When I showed it to Joe Miller aka Cheap Joe he quipped if I asked Charles Reid to sign it I would have TWO charles Reid flower paintings.

 So I did. Darn he didn’t do it. 🤗He did laff when I told him Joe told me to do it. 

I do have this very tiny Charles Reid sketch in my class notes where he explained to me how he would paint the yellow flowers. 

Unpacking almost done. Now I have to go to the grocery store for something healthy to eat. All I have in the house is a couple of apples and I want to paint them BEFORE i eat them. 

And I want to paint this great Mother’s Day bouquet before it does so off I go. 


I did collage the cover of my notebooks from Charles and Peggi Habets class. It’s a Strathmore Mixed Media 500 sketchbook which has such a dull brown cover. 

Ttyl xoxox Margaret glad she’s more unpacked than packed.  

Day 1024 Some Charles R class! 

Mari Mac aka Mari McMillan all the way from Hawaii! But used to live in Aiken SC. 

Christine and Brenda. This is our fourth class together. We are the see you in May in Boone at Cheap Joes girls. I think there were seven people we have had class with every year the first week in May  – Fealin Lin Ted Nuttalls and now Charles Reid. 

Off to paint. Let’s see if we can get this one done today. 22×30! What was I thinking painting that big?! Too late now. No going back. 

Margaret sitting on top of a mountain in Tennessee wondering what adventure we will have today. Xoxoxo

Day 1023 Raisin and her horses 

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 2019 Urban Sketching in Boone 

Well if sketching in the Wild Craft Eatery counts. Painted my sketch last night. I should have eaten my leftovers. Our third visit there and I still have some of the most amazing ravioli with tomato Gouda sauce and shiitake mushrooms leftover plus some of their delicious garden salad with pickled green beans, pumpkin seeds and cilantro lime dressing in the minifridge. 

But I decided to paint instead of eat. Been eating TOO MUCH even if the food in Boone is delicious. 

Should have taken more photos but was tired from hiking all over Valle Crucis. 


The original sketch. Off to Charlotte to the Raptor Center for a six year old birthday party for my niece Potter. 

She’s six today. Should be fun!!! HAppy Birthday Potter. 

Margaret off to shower. What it might be snowing?! Xoxoxo

Day 999 One more day. 

Happy Easter everyone. Raisin Carter.  The chief instigator of all her friends showing up at Peggis class aka Leader of the Pack. I had fun stamping her name.  I think she was a little tired from all the fun we had in Charlotte. We wore her out!! 

Julie whose taking Charles Reid’s class in May at Cheap Joes with me. Wish I had taken a photo of her interesting basketball player that she was working on.  

The ink sketches. Sometimes you should just leave them ink. I wasn’t using my normal skin tones of Quin coral and Quin gold. I used Quin rose and yellow ochre.  So the paintings are a little dark. 

They were painted with Quin rose, yellow ochre, ultramarine blue, mineral violet, and pyrrole red. Oh and sepia for a dark brown. 

Ink pen Lamy Safari filled with Carbon Platinum Black ink in a strathmore mixed media 500 journal. Love their crispy paper. Just wish they would lie flat like the Stillman and Birns do. 

Happy Easter. Margaret hanging out with the grandkids who are on sugar overload  xoxox

Day 998 Oh My Two More Days Painting PCM

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 994 – Peggy Habet’s class 

I drew Peggy several times during class. This was the last time and looks the most like her. Fourth time the charm. She was hard to draw with a long thin nose and a tiny face. 


The nose kept overpowering her tiny face when I drew her. This was the first try. And then I painted her too dark so I scrubbed her a little to lighten her up. I did have fun stamping her name and embellishing the page with a watercolor pencil. 


Go round three. Nose still too big. Eeekkk.  The hair is a combo of thalo and sepia. 


Number four. TOO Dark!!!’ What the heck. 


Better. But the face was too wide and not oval enough.  I could make it narrower by adding hair. 

I painted on my class sketches most of the day. Guess it’s time to do those color studies. 

Margaret xoxoxo whose having a painting day. 

Day 984 Alex and Willie

Every Sunday I watch CBS SUnday Morning. My fav bits on it are the partsabout  artists or singers people stuff. And this show is crammed with them. Alex was on this am talking about his 45 impersonations. Hard to resist sketching him. He morphed into 45. The mans definitely making me political!! 

The background was Quin gold but not enough contrast w the head. Like the orange one better. After all he is the Orange One”

Have always loved Willie and meant to just draw him. He just popped onto the page. What’s not to love about an 84 year old who says “we woke up and we are still not dead!”??

Think they are done. Maybe. Trying to resist the urge to scribble on them in the background with a soft dark pencils. So many quotable quotes from them both.  

Painted on 280# Arches Cold Press with Ted Nuttalls transparent palette plus cerulean, hematite and cheap Joes Andrews Turquoise. Pen pentel brush pen. 

Ttyl Going to try my hand at horses today. 

Margaret taking a walk in the park today too.