Category: Urban sketching

Day 2026 More Urban sketching

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This guy was really doing a super job singing his heart out at Soda City Saturday. I drew him in a hurry because I was meeting a friend at 1 and had to go when I found him playing his heart out in a bright sunny spot. Sun on the subject is always a plus for me.

Margaret having a lazy Monday but the weeks slam. Xoxoxox

Urban sketching at #SodaCity #urbansketching #ink #lamyjoy #usk #stillmanandbirn #columbia #sc #southcatolina #mainst #drawing #sketching #streetfestival #downtown #Sketchbookskool #sodacity

Day 1742 Inktober

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I have been doing inktober aka 31 ink sketches. Question is do you make it to the finish line of one ink drawing a day?!!!

I threw one of those strips in my purse before I went to Costco. Sat down at the restaurant area and put my satchel purse up on the table to hide behind. Parking yourself somewhere with a good site line to streams of people is always a good idea when doing these.

Started drawing with my Namiki Fude pen-love it’s thick thin lines. I tried to finish it at Lowe’s today BUT huge trucks thought they needed to be close to the door and blocked my view. 🤨

Pretty soon I had a whole strip done. I ended up at the Walmart grocery store because they always have a good flow of people going in and out.

Be brave and go to Costco or sams and draw the herds of people that walk by. Lotsa fun.

Margaret xoxoxox hanging out with a friend who is heading back to Charleston tomorrow.

Day 1309 Dr Sketchys

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hard to believe it’s already Dr Sketchys time.

Started off great. A five minute gesture sketch done with a pentel brush pen and watercolor.

Stephanie was our model. Such a hoot. She’s the mistress of the Augusta’s Chat Noir Burlesque troupe- also very funny. The burlesque ladies have a show coming up July 21 22nd. Hope to make it.

Stephanie is as Frida Kahlo. Then it went downhill for a while. I am blaming painting all afternoon. I was tired!

Stephanie the vamp.

Thirty minute final pose. Quite pleased with it!!

Finally I tossed my pentel brush pen and drew with a stadler B pencil and voila got one I liked.

Here’s the sketch before I painted it.

I used my Holbein Metal Palette with Charles Reid colors. Ordered a new one from amazon because this one is getting rusty and crusty. I lust for a Craig Young Palette at $480 🤪. When I am rich and famous right?!!

Drawn in my super aquabee tablet. 11×14″

Margaret xoxoxoxo off to run errands before I head to The western North Carolina mountains for the weekend of the fourth.

Day 1220 1300 Followers 🤗👍🏻& 100 Augusta Landmarks aka urban sketching

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Thanks to all my followers the new the old and the recent. I am so tickled and grateful.

Trying to get ready for masters week which means lots of sales at Art on Broad. The visitors love Augusta landmarks. I am sure there are 100 of them if I look and talk to my friend Robbie Harrell.

The Cotton Exchange 300lb 11×15″

I never can leave well enough alone. Should have stopped here I think. Now I have to do something to it.

I think I am going to have to paint the tree on the left. I will splatter it first then see.

I also drew it in my sketchbook.

Since I filled the page it didnt leave that big blank spot on the left. I can crop it out still. Probably the easy way out.

Colors used cobalt blue for shadows and windows w burnt sienna and quin sienna. Building is cad red burnt sienna and alizarin and a touch of cobalt. Roof is DS green from Kim’s class and cerulean. Sky cerulean.

Cropped.

Cotton Exchange story. At one time more cotton was sold around the world from this building than another place except the cotton exchange in I think Savannah. Cotton lined Reynolds street stacked 6 8 feet high for blocks in the early 1900s. And the warehouses surrounding it were full of more cotton that was shipped by train and down the Savannah River.

Did a lot of urban sketching yesterday since the sunlight was gorgeous.

St Paul’s Dome a block farther down the street. Holy Trinity I

Holy Trinity II

After I drew the first one I realized it would make a great double long spread. That said the sky will be gouache when I get done.

Maybe I will get these painted sometime soon. Gouache required for the messed up skies.

My new BFF I am calling Dot. An alpaca that lives in a field about a mile from my house. I finally took pics of him yesterday on my way home when I noticed he was near the fence. So cute. Now I want one.

Hoping I don’t kill all his pretty wispy curls.

Margaret off to shower and dress. Company coming. Xoxoxox

. #augusta #augustlandmarks #urbansketching #ink #usk #watercolor #aquarelle #stillmanandbirn #artonbroad #thecottonexchange #cottonexchange #dailydrawing #sketching

Day 1218 Urban Sketching

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My nieces sweet house where I stayed in Charlotte for class. It’s just a small house but the perfect size with a small perfect kitchen fabulous bathrooms. Three bedrooms and hardwood floors. Screened porch and front porch. A great yard. What else do you need. Oh handy to downtown class

Drawn with a Lamy Safari in my stillman and birn. I painted this with my paints left from class. DS sepentine Green House grass with a dab of hookers Mineral violet shadows yellow ochre for the trim. Roof trees are manganese and quin sienna. Trees have a dab of burnt umber as does the fence. Manganese sky. A bit of alizarin crimson for the pinks added while wet. And some brilliant purple for the iris.

All the painting was done wet on wet so the colors would mingle on the page.

Margaret xoxoxo

Day 1206 Wet Paint Party

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12×16″

Tonite Feb 24 at Sacred Heart. My sketch as well as 70 other pieces of art will be up at silent auction for adoption to decorate your walls with some fabulous art. There will be some wild fun entertainment engineered by Vintage Oolie. Always interesting. All money raised goes to the Augusta Arts Council.

I was trying to keep the sketch light and loose. I meant to take a photo of the ink drawing which was not exact just close. Loosening up as Bob Burridge would say. I was also trying to keep it transparent.

I really loathe painting trees with watercolor and it always seems to show. I had to work on them a lot to get them right. Multiple Layers.

SKY – blotted the washes as I laid them down to get cloud. Used cerulean blue and some verditer blue.

Building – quin coral quin gold with dioxzine purple and cobalt blue with some cerulean and quin burnt orange for the greys.

Trees – quin gold, Daniel Smith gold green, cobalt, ultramarine blue, dioxzine purple and mineral violet.

Come on out. Always a fun event.

Margaret xoxoxox

Day 1164 The Fox

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Today is the day of the big wordpress makes me one of their favorite websites?! Gosh I wonder exactly where it will be. And exactly what it means. Anyway it’s exciting.

I just love the Fox Theatre. Love getting stopped at the light on Peachtree and Ponce so I can take pictures of it. If you have never been in it GO. RUN! It’s magical with its grandiose brass Moorish influences architecture. My Brain is tired from drawing and painting for hours today.

I also love the Atlanta skyline at night. It reminds me of Christmas trees lit up.

EEEKKKK!!!

Life did not go well. The reason there are two of them is the ink on the first one bled. No idea why. It’s my pilot desk pen that suppose to have permanent ink in it. It doesn’t. When I wet it with a base wash of quin gold it ran. I mopped it with paper towel. Painted some more and it kept running.

8×10″ For Sale. Also will be making prints and cards of these paintings. Email me if you are interested.

So I traced it off and transferred it with Sarah to another piece of paper. Then I inked it.

The first thing I did with this was to coat it lightly with quin gold. It makes the buildings glow. And it’s very transparent.

I used a lot of cobalt and Daniel Smith Piemonte in the shadows and to stripe the Fox. Piemonte’s a very transparent purple brown. Combined with cobalt it can be luscious.

The Fox is mostly quin gold though I got a little heavy with it so it went brown in places.

I combined indigo, alizarin, and hookers green to make a dark sky and coated it twice to make it opaque.

After I painted the sky black I realized that it should not have been black but the rest of the buildings should have been black and the sky lighter. Hoping to give the sky a glow and a ligher color I used  Andrews turquoise near the rooflines and mineral violet higher up. Since they are both semiopaque colors they did a good job lightening the sky.

You can see where I tested the turquoise and violet on the messed up one.

I used a bit of white gel pen to highlight things. Quin red and coral on the tail lights because they have a glow no other permanent red has.

NUMBER 2 also for sale once I finish the sky and the darn marquee.

This is the runny ink sketch. I think I need to work on the sky a bit more but ya my favorite. When something’s messed up you have a lot of freedom to just play and I did.

The whites are all white gouache because I had NO whites left which is sad for any watercolor I think. The whites make it sparkle. Reserve those whites Kids!! I dabbed it on the grey tail lights, on the stop lights the street lights, all over the Marquee, and the Fox sign. Really made it pop. Did I say LOVE it now.

I think I might actually repaint this in a large format.

No gel pen on this one at all.

Black tape. Discovered that when I took a class from Peggy Habits last spring. Love that stuff. You can buy it at staples or on amazon.

PSSSSS.…somehow when I was painting I managed to make the marquee not quite square…guess thats another fix when I fix the sky.

Anyway welcome to my corner of the world which seems to involve a lot of driving by the Fox which I DO love. I am just a star struck Fox Theatre fan.

Margaret xoxox who would like to welcome all my new followers…12 in the last hour!! :>

Day 1163 Excitement

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This letter from WordPress Discover was in my in box this am. Too exciting. 🤗

I’ve selected your site (https://margaretmccarthyhunt.com/) for Discover (https://discover.wordpress.com); our team has promoted one of your posts in the past, but we also think your entire site is great, with new art frequently posted, so we wanted to designate it as a recommended site pick.Your site will appear on Discover on January 12. Thanks so much for continuing to publish with us and happy 2018!🤗👍🏻🎉

🔘Now about that picture. A remembrance of our adventure at the Center for the Puppetry Arts a big hit with Henry and I. The troupe does an amazing job. Extremely professional and a very well done show.

The painting is done with Ted Nuttalls transparent palette in my Stillman and Birn Alpha drawn with one of my Lamy’s.

The museum is incredible. A great Jim Henson section. Yes Kermit and Miss Piggy are there. And the Fraggles. Historical puppets from around the world. Indian shadow puppets. l Lots of interactive child friendly exhibits.

A Chines puppet I think. Scar from Lion King. The large puppets from War Horse.

Just a great place. Henry wanted to go again and see the Gingerbread Boy show. We should have. So much easier than Fernbank.

Put the Center for the Puppetry Arts on your must see Atlanta list. You will love it. Ask Henry!!

Margaret xoxoxox whose excited about WordPress Discover!! Yeah

Day 1153 Make that 502!!

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Pretty exciting news to me. I would like to thank and welcome all my new followers. Did I did I do that already!? Probably but hey thanks again!!

And did I say Happy New Year!!!

So time to post some art. This is Peachtree about the 1400 block right near the Center for the Puppetry Arts. Not yet painted. I was on my easy from Aam Flaxs to Dick Block/Utrecht store.

What color there is was done with a tea bag. Had no idea it would color it so much just painting. If it gets too soupy it will run thru the binding in my Stillman and Birn but then so will watercolor.

Another blank page colored with my teabag. Kinda fun. Try it.

Margaret whose getting three free hours and a babysitter so I gotta run.

Happy New Years and thanks again for all the follows. Hugs xoxoxo

Day 1101 Inktober oops

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I don’t think I ever posted this one. I need to sit down and paint more than the dogs. Double page spreads can be so time consuming and I have several to paint.

Working on a quilt with a definite finish date in mind -asap so painting taking a back seat for the moment.

This is the old Medical College of Georgia building on Telfair where the Medical school started. When it was restored in the 1980s thousands of bones were found in the basement left behind from cadavers stolen from the local black cemeteries picked up by our own Resurrection Man – Grandison Harris who got an article in the Smithsonian Magazine .

I recently listened to a fascinating audible book named Resurrectionist by Matthew Guinn about a similar character in Columbia SC at a medical school there. His other book about Atlanta post Civil War was also great.

Drawn on watercolor board with a Lamy EF Ted Nuttalls watercolor palette.

Margaret off in the rain to get her haircut. Hmm that should be frizzy. Xoxoxo