Day 917 Urban Sketching the Woman’s March

January 22, 2017Leave a comment

Despite the deluges yesterday a large crowd turned out. It was a rainbow kind of crowd – old and young, men and women, LGBT and even a few dogs.

I drew these yesterday on a very wet day in downtown Augusta. The March and the speeches were at historic Springfield Park where Morehouse College started at Springfield Baptist across the street.

The flame like sculpture on the rampart is all a part of the park. I did paint these at home. I didn’t think watercolor would work too well in deluge weather. Besides there was nowhere to put anything down because it POURED all morning too.

A second even faster sketch of the happy crowd of raincoats and galoshes. I think the correct number of marches was actually 671 but the speakers said 370 and 20 countries.

The sketches were done in my Stillman and Birn Zeta mixed Media with my very patriotic Red Noodler Konrad. I added the flags and the signs to give more interest to the sketches.

Notice the big raindrop blotches on the ink?! Oops. Bravely I kept on sketching standing on top of a bench for a better view.

Here’s the first sketch and a picture of the crowd and park. The local news reported 600 people were there. I think there were closer to 1000. Guess it’s impossible to count.

Somebody asked me how I drew these. The only thing I can say is start at the front and fill in the crowd moving back or you won’t have room for the people in the foreground.

You can not draw a counter in a restaurant and then add people. You have to do it people first then the counter or pencil in the counter which I rarely do. Sometimes it gets me into trouble when I forget the order :

People first background last!

Happy sketching.

Margaret madly painting black edges on canvases for her show at 4p in February. Xoxoxo and yes it’s still raining.

Day 915 Atlanta

January 21, 2017Leave a comment

These are based on photos I have taken in Atlanta the last few years. Drawn on Stonehenge paper with Prismacolor pencils and art sticks.

The High Museum 5×8″hmm this building is all white but not in my version. Added the red sky to hopefully make building pop. And dabs of lime green to make the red pop or was it the other way around. Complimentary colors do that.

Ponce City Market- 5x 8″

I take so many photos of this building. So hard to get close enough to take pics of Tower on the right and the name on top of the building. I think one day that name will be an Atlanta icon similar to the Hollywood sign.

The only difference in these two is the sky. The blue made the orange pop. Complimentary colors do. Think it helped don’t you?! Also like the letters sort of there but not quite.

Fox Theater

I am always getting stuck turning left onto Ponce de Leon from Peachtree in front of the Fox Theater. I love looking at it. And since I am stopped dead in traffic at a light I whip out my phone and snap a photo or two.

The Fox is a fairytale Moorish palace complete with a twinkling star strewn ceiling worthy of Scherazades tales in the heart of Atlanta downtown. If you haven’t been to a show in this one or the one in Detroit treat yourself and go. Just magical.

I am going to have another go at this one because it was the first one I tried and it’s not too great. And the Fox needs more from me.
Thanks for stopping by!!

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 912 a little conch republic

January 18, 2017January 19, 2017Leave a comment

And a little more FauvismWhat we jokingly call a jacaranda when we head to key West. The trail on the Sunshine Parkway to Key West and we try to entertain ourselves. One way is the first jacaranda sightings which we usually spot south of Orlando.

The Tale of the Jacaranda

Now why do we call Norfolk Pines Jacarandas? My first trip to Key West I sent a picture of a very tall thin tree to a friend who grew up in Florida. She told me it was a Jacaranda even though we thought it was a Norfolk Pine. I finally looked it up and yes it’s a Norfolk Pine. They grow fifty or more feet tall in southern Florida. Straight up like a cornstalk.

But that’s southern Florida for you. Every house plant we have grows to enormous size. Our house plants are their outside foundation plants. Pothos and philodendrons have leaves bigger than dinner plates and grow stories tall just like the Jacaranda Pine tree.

Stillman and Birn mixed media Zeta Ted Nuttals transparent colors. My small Isabey mop. Well mostly.

Yesterday after I bough the sunflowers I remembered that Earthfare sold some gorgeous red radishes with lots of green leaves. So I made an extra trip 8 miles up the street and got a bunch. $2.99 ouch. Cheaper than flowers though.

Once again we were to use as many cooors as we could to draw these after drawing the first one in the colors the object is. I was lazy and left them on the plastic bag.

Number 1. Fun but I like the other one better.

And all the colors I used.

Day 909 A bit more of Key West

January 15, 2017Leave a comment

Been meaning to finish this for a while. Today I did it. A compilation of two of our tours the Historic Inn Tour and the Christmas Trolley Light Tour which was our fav. $15. A bargain.

Still have three more spreads to finish. Guess it’s time. Anyone know a publisher who needs a Key West book?!

The tools.

Hmm painted with my smaller #2 Richeson mop and my #10 Da Vinci Sable. And mostly I used the mop.

Tips on The Christmas tree. Leave a lot of white. First layer is quin gold. Then I added hematite green and a bit of hookers green and ultramarine blue. Did the palm the same way.

Last I used a white pentel gel pen to add white lines and lights to the trolley. And anywhere else I wanted a bit of white. It doesn’t show when u use it but it does show in photos. Strange but true.

Off to sketch the park in black and white. Wonder how many pens I will use?!

Ttyl

Enjoy your Sunday

Margaret xoxoxox

Day 908 Lazy Saturday

January 14, 2017Leave a comment

After all that sneezing and Benadryl decided to be lazy today and binge on Netflix’s.

Maybe I should do some urban sketching off of Midsommer Murders? It’s always set in the most charming Bristish villages as long as you overlook a serial murder or two in every village.

About the sketch one of the Key West sketches. A steel drum player at Buzzards Roost. Sketched on location of course.

Colors are Ted Nuttalls transparent colors. Pentel. Rush pen in a Stillman and Birn Zeta.

Tip: I do much better painting all trees when I use my squirrel mops. I have a 12 and a big fat Isabey mop. It keeps me from getting to detailed. Then I usually splatter them to give the small lead effect.

Love my mops. Top one is the Isabey 12 second one is an Isabey 8 I think. Bottom one is a Richeson 2. The 12 is from Blick Atlanta Peachtree store. The bottom two are from Cheap Joes. I use the two smaller ones the most.

It’s really hard to get detailed with these which is great for trees or painting Charles Reid style. The smallest brush he likes to use is an Isabey 16 Kolinski sable.

That’s is for today. Go forth and sketch.

Margaret xoxoxo thinking about a run to the nearest park to sketch the kids in the manufactured snow park. One day only event.

Day 904 Movie challenge

January 10, 2017Leave a comment

There’s something about a Miss Marple show. I love all of them in their various reincarnations.

I have sketched Miss Marple before – the previous actress before Julia McKenzie. Julia portrays a sharp tougher version of Miss Marple and GPTV our PBS channel has been replaying her series on Thursday nites and Sunday afternoon.

Sunday I like to just let PBS run as long as it’s not begathon time. Thank goodness they are done with that for a week or so.

I paused the tv and took a pic of her in an interesting pose.

I drew her with my pentel brush pen off my iPad. And it didn’t go well. I got too heavy handed with the dark shadows.

Gouache to the rescue. Almost like using acrylics. The background is watercolor. Peacock blue and hematite green. Then I scratched the wc off the palm tree.

Last spread in my Stillman and Birn Zeta. Hurrah.

Ttyl

Margaret xoxox

Day 899 – Some More Urban Sketching

January 6, 2017Leave a comment

I pass this cute diner every day twice a day on the way to class at USC Aiken or on Saturdays when I go to life modeling. I am always on a mission to get to Aiken on time or to get home and let the dogs out so I never have stopped to eat there. I hear the pies are great. They decorate it up for fall. Lots of pumpkins corn stalks and roosters. There’s even an old ford truck that gets strung with garlands of fall leaves. I didn’t draw it. I ran out of space.

Here are the brushes I use. The bottom is my fav a sable Da Vinci 10 but the tree and the sky were painted with a Richeson mop. A 12 that I bought at cheap joes two years ago. Very difficult to get any detail with it which is good in tree foliage. The tree branches and trunk were painted by a big goats hair dagger brush that I got at Sam Flaxs a couple of weeks ago. Very long and loopy designed for sign painters. So far I can only get it to paint lines – Straight and curved ones. Practice right?

And I love this sassy rooster sculpture out on the highway in front of the cafe. I need to draw him with a brush pen on a sunny day. School starts Monday so will passing the charming fellow again several times a week. Maybe one day on the way home again soon.

Stillman and birn Mixed media Zeta with a pilot Carbon pen. Really fine point.

Colors used. Quin gold. Cerulean, ultramarine, burnt umber, Quin burnt orange, pyrrole red, cad orange, hematite green, peacock for the sky. And a bit of American Journey Andrews blue a turquoise that I added to my pallet lately.

Homework done. Done. Had to make myself do this one and I love doing calligraphy just not fond of the word hate. Used my pentel brush pen -heavy lines- a Noodler Konrad – fine black lines – and a red tombow for hate. Oh a light Gray tombow for shading in love.
That’s all folks. Got to do my homework for sketchbookskool. Did I say I am behind because I went sketching Mahjong ladies at a local cafe after yoga today when I should have been doing my homework.

A bientot Margaret xoxox

Day 898 The Best Burgers

January 4, 2017Leave a comment

Are at Farmburgers in Decatur. Locally grown food to table restaurant on Ponce de Leon. I drew this with my Lamy Safari during g the end of rush hour.

The guy in the foreground who was maybe a foot from me was so involved in his conversation that he never noticed me drawing him.

The waitress did though. She loved it.

Of course all the people were not where they are at the same time. I dropped in the foreground people adding the background and the people in line with menus after the foreground.

Sometimes I mess up and do it the other way. That NEVER works out well. Oops.

Remember FOREGROUND first then background. Ok?!

Colors used same as yesterday.

Today’s sketchbookskool installment. Draw an electric cord with a brush pen. I used my pentel brush pen.

Not as easy as you would think. Really didn’t like it til I added the grey tombow shadows.

Used a light grey tombow for the cord shadows.

And splattered it with a bit of black watercolor paint.

Both sketches are in Stillman and Birn zetas.

Ttyl playing bridge today. NOT played inmore years than I care to think. Twenty maybe?

Pray for me.

Margaret who better get dressed. xoxox

Day 896- Happy New Years Again?!

January 2, 2017Leave a comment

Since it’s a Federal holiday and they even shifted the Rose Bowl Parade to today why not two Happy New Years wishes. I still have more Key West sketches but I finished this Atlanta sketch yesterday so thought I would “change it up” as some of my kids used to say.

I dew this a Friday after I made a quick visit to Sam Flaxs on Peachtree and I really like the way it turned out.

I painted it with my water brushes and my two small travel palettes. One is full of Winsor and Newton colors plus Inathrodone and Quin coral. The other is full of a few leftovers from my old Windsor and Newton travel palette that broke like Thalo blue and green and black plus white gouache and eight various quinacridones from Daniel Smith including the Quin gold.

Stillman and birn zeta with Lamy EF. Lexington Grey Ink.

Not having enough to do I decided to join the sketchbookskool class a drawing a day lead by Veronica Lawlor who teaches I think at Pratt or Columbia in NYC.

The directions were to draw a still life in a continuous line with a fine point sharpie. I couldn’t resist adding shadows oops. And lettering is always irresistible to me.

Since I still have Christmas up I decided to draw my collection of “misfit” snowmen and ladies. When Christmas is over I go to Tuesday Morning or TJ Max and get a deal on these who are usually missing an eye or a nose and I fix them.

Now resisting the urge to paint it.
Ttyl French class soon!!

Margaret enjoying her new year.

Day 856 – Happy Veterans Day

November 12, 2016November 12, 2016Leave a comment

Once again I posted this yesterday on that OTHER website…sigh…

Somehow saying Happy Veterans Day seems like a conundrum to me because is not happy and people remembering it are sad.

That said I am sharing sketches of War Memorials I did in France last fall in Normandy at the sites of the Allied D Day Invasions 71 years ago.

The Canadian Cemetery at Beny sur Mer. It was odd to me that people to young to know the men buried there were crying over dead relatives.

That said I found myself doing the same thing as I shared a link to my dads historic battle of Foxhill at the Choisin Reservoir in 1950. PBS recently aired a riveting documentary about the week long battle. I had heard bits of the story but to actually see the 32 below conditions they fought in, the rugged almost arctic landscapes, the mass burials of the Marine dead,the frozen Chinese who were shot because the Marines had no other choice in this desperate time was a totally different experience.

The beautiful Canadian Juno Beach Museum shaped like a maple leaf on the beaches of La Manche, the Sleeve as the French call the English Channel. A stunning building wrapped in glowing aluminum with state of the art exhibits.

The Ranville Eglise next to another Canadian Cemetery in Caen Normandy France. The day was getting dark and somber threatening rain that afternoon.

The Pegasus Bridge Museum. Using gliders brave British paratroopers jumped behind Nazi lines BEFORE the Allied invasion forces landed on the Normandy beaches. I am sure many of them are now buried at the nearby Ranville Cemetery. They are immortalized in the movie The Longest Day.
Thanks for stopping by.

Margaret xoxox