Category: Tips

Day 421 – A Little Urban Sketching 

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at Fitch and Fifth in Surrey Center in Augusta Ga. A room full of people and I am waiting to eat. What else would I do?!

 Scenes like this really call my name to get out my Noodler Ahab or my brush pen and get busy drawing.  

I do usually paint these later because I don’t want to impose on whoever I am with too much. 

TIP: Oh. Almost forgot. The ledger strip down the side.  Whenever you see that I can promise you there is something I really didn’t like about the sketch.  In this case it was a waiter running a bill. Usually a figure on the side is nice but this one was not!! What to do?! Glue some ledger paper down and record our dinner. 
Ps it was delicious. My trout was perfect. I forgot their five stars. Oops. Will fix that!!! Or maybe not. Really like it just the way it is. 

 
And you thought the body was round?! Enjoy. One more page left!! 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 417 – a Dogs life!  

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  Pouring rain here today and all but one of the dogs hate to go out in the rain. 

This dog appeared on TV when I paused it. Decided it was a sign to paint him. No idea what kind of dog he is. A collie perhaps?!

  
Here’s the original sketch done with the Pentel brush pen. It’s good for quick sketching but takes some getting used to aka practice. Also some thinking is required before you sketch aka at what angle should the lines be drawn?! 

Better to do one line than try to correct the permant ink lines. They will always show unless you do some creative painting. 

The dog was painted with a cheap Joes size 12 Legend sable. Expensive but worth every penny. I use it a lot. 

Colors used – most of my paint is Daniel Smith or Holbein. Quin gold and Quin Sienna for the fur.  Quin red for the tongue with a touch of mineral Violet. Burnett umber and ultramarine blue for the darks. Cerulean in the shadows. 
 Sorry I forgot to post these yesterday so doubling up today.  
  
  
  
Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 416- It’s Saturday again!! 

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  You know what that means – Life Modeling at USC Aiken. I am very happy with my painting today. Ilena might get a few tweaks but she’s done for now. 

  
It was a great pose and the drawing went well. I didn’t even use head measurements til the end just to check if she was in good order. It took about twenty minutes to draw this sketch. 

TIP: The drawing was started with the shoulders matching the diagonal line of the models shoulders. Same for the arms and leg angles. You imagine drawing a straight line thru the shoulders and start with that line. 

The outline of the head was added still matching the angles of the models head. 

  

  
 Here she is after about an hour of painting. Still a lot to do but looking good. The rust color is Quin Sienna or burnt orange. Not sure which. Flesh is Quin coral with a dab of yellow ochre added. The Blues are mostly cobalt. Hair burnt umber and ultramarine blue. 

You really don’t need a lot of colors to paint people. 

  
Everybody voted no to a light blue background. 

  
Then it got a little dark. Oopps. Turning it upside down and allowing water to lift the color fixed the background. Along with a little blotting. 

  
The. I had ring around the model. A NO NO.  

  I fixed that by adding bits of colors around the model and the ring disappeared. 

  Her current incarnation. Thanks for all the help and advice from my peanut gallery Ruth, Mike, and Tom!! 
Thanks for reading. Go forth and draw! 

Margaret xxx

Day 413 – Drawing Target

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Excited my sketch yesterday was sold. HURRAH!!  

Yesterday there were herds of people check out at the Evans Ga Target. I got THE table with a view of both Starbucks and the check out lines. With 15 minutes to kill before time for class at the Y I drew these people. 

Done with my Pentel brush pen. Like the way most of them turned out. When drawing these life is going too fast to think about anything but capturing the gestures as quickly as possible so accidents happen like the girl in the gutter. 

  
Here it is in ink. 

  I also started another strip. 

Remember all these figures took about 18 minutes tops. 
   

Here’s a couple more of those pages. More tomorrow!! Enjoy!! 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

 

Day 413 – Drawing Target

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Excited my sketch yesterday was sold. HURRAH!!  

Yesterday there were herds of people check out at the Evans Ga Target. I got THE table with a view of both Starbucks and the check out lines. With 15 minutes to kill before time for class at the Y I drew these people. 

Done with my Pentel brush pen. Like the way most of them turned out. When drawing these life is going too fast to think about anything but capturing the gestures as quickly as possible so accidents happen like the girl in the gutter. 

  
Here it is in ink. 

  I also started another strip. 

Remember all these figures took about 18 minutes tops. 
   

Here’s a couple more of those pages. More tomorrow!! Enjoy!! 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

 

Day 412 People time

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SOLD!!!

I drew this the other day when we had breakfast at the inner bean. A lot of times when I try to draw people like this I end up with a mess. For once I started in the front and drew to the back. 

Today sketching at Costco I  did the opposite. A bit of a mess. 

Since these are generally drawn in ink you don’t get a do over when the figures over lap shelves. If you start in the front not such a problem.  I started with the left bottom corner. 

  Contrast was a problem too. All the figures were blending into each other on the left. 

  
I converted it to black and white. With the color gone it was easy to see where the figures wee blending in. Bottom left was especially bad. 

  I uped the contrast aka value which I think improved life at the bean. 

Just remember my chickies it’s all about value. 

  An old page of dads on how to draw people I thought u might find interesting. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 411 -A Pelican 

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I drew this brown pelican when I was at the Key West Wildlife Center with my brush pen. Finally got around to painting him. If you wonder why he was at the center I noticed while sketching he was missing the upper bill. For lack of a way to exlain it better the part under where your nose would be. I noticed because I saw his tongue while I was drawing him. He was above my eye level. 

  Here is another pic oh him if you want to draw him. See the slit in his bill? The reason he lives at the center. 
Since I drew this I have thought a lot about these poor birds doomed to live in cages forever because we polluted their world. Fishing line or a fish hook likely got his bill. Saddens me to thin that he will never get to soar on the currents or dive bomb for fish like he was supposed to do. Now he lives in a cage with another pelican. 

All I am going to say is DONT throw ur trash in the water. 

Colors used: Quin gold, cerulean, burnt sienna, and every blue I own for the water plus a little spring green and purple. 
Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 410 – More of those chickens!! 

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Courthouse Chickens Key West 

Where else but in Key West would you find chickens at the courthouse?! 

  

I drew these toward the end of our stay in Key West when I went on a sketchathon starting at the Key West Wildlife Center and ending at Higgs Beach sketching the people as they walked by in front of the car. 

   
Fast sketching requires a good flowing pen – chickens birds and people don’t hold still for long!! I use my Noodler Craper Ahab or one of my two brush pens – the Kuretake or the Pentel.  The first two are always loaded with Carbon Platinum Black ink which dries so rapidly. I frequently paint them later especially if the weather is extreme like in the tropical heat of key west. 

 
 I thought you might like to see the chickens before I painted them. 

  
  While in Key west I saw a lot of Chinese style brush work paintings of animals in one gallery on Duval. And decided to try it out on the long chicken strip. I liked it so much I did it on these pages too. 

There are really only a few pure colors used on the chickens. Quin gold, Quin Sienna, Quin burnt orange, Inathradone, Quin red and alizarin period. All the colors were allowed to combine on the page. Painting was done with my large cheap joes legend #12 sable even the large splatters. 
  

Tip: To make the splatters. Choose a color or two and make a soupy mix. Fillup a large brush and gently tap over the painting. Yes I have a toothbrush but I always get little splatters not big juicy ones with it.

  

  
Probably due to heat stroke I was imagining what the chickens might be thinking as I drew.  What would I think if I were a courthouse chicken?! Look there goes another felon?! Wonder what they did?! Hope I win my case?! 

  

Before I started drawing chickens  I thought roosters were mean ready to attack you at any second like the ones we had as kids. When get are with the chicks and be a they are very different beasts. They are not aggressive. Feed them and they defer to the babies and hens to eat. They also stand vigil while the hen takes care of the babies. Who knew??! 



Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx 

Day 409 – Life modeling 

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   Having fun at dripping paint today because when things are not going well that’s when you get to have fun with the watercolor paint. You can’t ruin it if it’s already messed up. 

A list of today’s problems:

Could not get myself together today to draw Erica. 

My mechanical pencil had no lead. OPPS. 

Borrowed a pencil from Tom. Sharpened off center so it ran out quickly. 

Couldn’t find my glasses. 

Maybe I needed to go back to bed and start again?! But I loved her pose today and the wicker chair so I kept slogging along at it.  
Between all of that I got her roughed in without loosing a foot. The legs stayed where they belonged but what about those arms. They were both too short. Great thing about Fabriano. You can life color off with an old paint brush.  

 
Notice how short HER right arm is in this pic? What was I thinking. Got my old oil paint brush out lifted the background and now her arm is better. 

  Had trouble getting her head right too. Charles Reid has a rule. Never make the head smaller than four inches. It’s just too difficult to paint if it is. But smart me drew a head that might be an inch and a half at most. It hd to be small to get the whole body in. Oh well. I won’t do that again. 
She is done for today. That does not mean that tomorrow I might not get up and scrub her off the paper. Or change her in some way. But for now. DONE.

Oh wait.  I think it needs a little turquoise. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 406 – the Pier

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The Pier at Garden City

This was sketched on the pier at Garden City. A very long pier. The late evening sun glinting off the boards was turning the dock to gold.  

 A bit of the pier

People were everywhere. Some sitting some walking enjoying the breezes others waiting to get weaves done in their hair. Who knew weaves were in demand on the piers of the Grand Strand?! 

   

 Put these together to see the whole pier. 

And of course you guessed that gold is Quin gold.  The people’s shadows were made with a soupy Inathradone and burnt umber mix that I let drip from the feet by propping the sketch book up. I added burnt sienna to some of the figures to give them a tan. Tans are big at the beach. 

I seem to be into drips and splatters lately. I find the splatters are easier if I load a large brush like my #12 Legend sable brush with a soup of darker colors like blues and the Browns. Sometimes together sometimes separate. 

Tip of the day!! Just remember splattering can make a BIG mess!! BeWaRe!!! It will go everywhere. 

Thanks for reading.  

Margaret xxx