I almost forgot to blog. Came home from class and took a nap then left for Dr Sketchys.  

 Oops no blog post. So here I sit in the cvs parking lot waiting for Ruth and writing about Winsor Newton watercolor markers. I bought these to use at the fair last week when I went to City Art in Columbia- a great old fashioned art store on Lincoln downtown. The. I lost my sketchbook so no using them at the fair. 

   The colors I Have are odd. No Browns. One cad red never a fav with me. No cerulean or cobalt. Just Pthalo. No yellow ochre some of my go to school favs. 
  So these were colored with the six I had.  I will say I like the way they flowed. And the way they covered the paper. Lots of juicy color.  I hope to use them instead of my beloved Tom Bows. More tomorrow after add Sketchys where they will get a work out. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

  And some Inktober drawn with a Noodler Konrad loaded with Lexington Grey ink. These shoes have a lot of memories and I have been meaning to do this page since last May when Fealin Lin and I both got a pair of them. They are ultra comfy but hot for warm weather. Our feet were killing us because of standing all day at Cheap Joes at Fealins class. Of course the cure was a trip out to Mast General in Valle Crusis the most beautiful valley that is like time forgot it. One of Mikes and my favorite places near Boone NC.  

 
Fealin Lin!! 

  

  Mast general 

  Gorgeous tree behind Mast General 

  Inside Mast General 

  Inside Mast General 

  An old house. 

  

The church 

M

 

Barn near Mast General   
  A creek in Valle Crucis.  
The original Mast General store was in Valle Crucis. There are others in Boone Asheville and Columbia Sc and I think Knoxville. Just great old fashioned stores. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Draw at the state fair but when I sat down to do it my sketchbook was gone. Thank goodness it was a new one and empty of everything but my name and address. 

So you will have to make do with some of my favorite paintings from the Fine art exhibit. 

  
The Canty Building. You can see it keeps on going and going and going. 

All of these paintings are professional class. I tried to list the names of the paintings. You should be able to see the artists names of u click on the photo.

  

Inscrutable with his ribbon. Hope u r not tired of him.  You know I am not. Lol. 

  

 Al Beyer’s Dog Oil Certificate of Merit What a great dog!! 
The back porch One of the first places. Watercolor I think but it’s hard to tell the categories. They aren’t separated by category. 

   

Ganges Morning watercolor I think. Quarter sheet. 

   
One of my very favorites. Nostalgia.  20×30 or so. Full of detail.  Love it. 

   
  Got chicken by Todd Baxter oil or acrylic. 3’x3’ish

  Monday Monday by Diana?! No idea the media. Probably watercolor 
   
  Sunrise over the Coosaw River -Tommie Towner. No idea the media but loved the colors. 

  

  Judge not the Cowboy-Trahern Cook-Too much fun!!! .

  

  Path to Enlightenment Rob Shaw – loved the feeling of distance in this one. 
   One of the enormous sandcastle near the dinosaur exhibit. All the dinosaurs moved. Kids loved it. 
More tomorrow. I really did want to draw. Boohoo. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

  
Got to admit Inktober was wearing thin (and only 11 more days to go) especially after I spent most of the afternoon stripping my huge 19x 20 foot kitchen floor. Worst thing is that I paid a cleaning lady to put all that build up on it. 

  The white “grout” lines were no longer white. See those dark brown lines. The whole floor was like that. The bottom part of the photo has been stripped. The top is still clinging to its mop and glo. 

 All those white lines used to be brown and the tile part was muddy looking. Ickkkkkk

 Then yakking w my friend Mike I realized that I could do a recipe on how I did it. And have a fun zingy title too. Aka attention getter lol. 

  
I had to do it twice because the first one refused not to smear when I erased the pencil. I always pencil recipes in so I can rearrange them. The Noodler Lexongton grey ink looked dry but was not. It never quit smearing and it was smearing a lot. Never used Noodler ink in my Aquabee so I switched to my staedler liner pens. 

Now it’s done. 

Hurrah off to shower and sleep well lol
Thanks for reading. 

Margaret. 

  
Day 17 Lake Jocassee from White Water Falls This one really needs paint. Hard to find Lake Jocassee in all the mountains. Despite this being Inktober some things scream for color! 

  
Now you can see the lake!! 

  
I thought about drawing White Water Falls the longest falls in North Carolina but waterfalls never turn out well for me.  Perhaps it’s all that black rock?! 
  
Mayberrys in Brevard. Cute little restaurant there. Great food great staff. 

I really liked this sketch til I was trying to fix it last nite and my Noodler Konrad bled all over it. What the heck. I have only had it a few months. Back to the drawing board. 😜

   
The last hydrangea. Freeze warnings out. This is includes the view out the window. I need to draw them both!! 

 But the question is which way?! Photo one of photo two and while u r at it would someone run downstairs to the car and get my bag of pens from the car please? 

  
I cover my sketch books stickers collected on my trips. Often free but who could resist this one for $1?!

Ps did I say my cold is back?! Only two weeks and two days til I leave for Paris. No time for a cold!! 

Thanks for Reading. 

Margaret xxx

  

Wesley my sons rescue. A big black w white dog aka cow dog. 

And I ran off to draw a stack of sketches at Best of Augusta. LoTs of FuN. Stay tuned!!

Thanks for reading.  

Margaret in a hurry. Xxx

  

All done but the signing.

Professor Al said it was PoWeRfUL?!! 😋👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻   Did I say hurrah?! That’s a major statement coming from Al Beyer. Maybe I should do more self portraits.  After all we are out cheapest model!!  

 The start – like a contour drawing. No exactness. 
 Have to say it really doesn’t look a lot like me but I wasn’t striving for a likeness. I was actually pushing it to the dark side. My hair was wild which usually it’s a lot calmer. I fluffed it up for the photo. Beethoven has nothing on me. 

  Underway using complimentary colors. 

My nose is nowhere near that long but the slash of white was fun. As was darkening the smile lines and the bags under the eyes. 

 Time for the background

 Also great fun adding zings of red and green here and there.  A lot of the red was done with the end of my paint brush dipped in the cad red light. All the purple was made with alizarin and phtalo blue. You can’t get a nice purple with phtalo blue and cad red. You get more of a brown. Not what I had in mind. 

  Oops lost the hair on the right. 

One more note. This was painted with large hog bristle brushes-flats 10&12 and slashes with a 6. 

Next up a 32×48″ painting of ta da.  Drum roll please!!  

 
I made my sister pose for me when she was baking Friday. Should be interesting. Largest thing I have painted in years. 

And darn. I left my Inktober sketchbook in the car yesterday. Duh!! 

  
Report from the Savannah.  

 The river is up from all the rain in the upstate but the rain is gone and the sun is out!!  All is good in the CSRA!

Up tomorrow – catching up on Inktober. Actually two sketches in the car. Color me too lazy to run down stairs and get them when I am leaving anyway in a bit. My house is on stilts like a beach house so LOTS of stairs. Three stories of them. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret glad to have survived the eminent doom of a catastrophic flood!! Nope Noah never showed up!!

XXX M on the Savannah River