Category: Urban sketching

Day 626 Eglise de Ranville 

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A detail of a WIP of the Eglise de Ranville. I wish the whole building at turned out as well. As Charles Reid an American Master and my personal watercolor art hero says hit it once and be done! 

 

 I got a light hand back when I painted the cemetery. 

  

A bit of history. The cemetery is where the dead from Pegasus Bridge are buried. The church is a lovely old gothic building picked mark with shell holes from the fighting in WW2. RAnville was the first town freed by the Allies during the D Day Invasions. 

A slightly whacky perspective.  I may redraw this one. Originally I drew it standing inside the cemetery gate on a cold blustery day so of course you don’t get a full view. 
I had wanted the old limestone Gothic church much lighter like the tower.  I started with light yellow wash over the whole church. I made a mistake using cerulean and burnt sienna to paint a wash of grey. Cerulean is opaque. Eek! Bad choice.  It can make a great grey as long as you aren’t too heavy with it.

Day 624 – A touch of whimsy

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 A few quick pen sketches I did today at  the Augusta Area Newcomers luncheon. 

I actually was hiding the sketchbook under the table. I warmed up with the lady on the left and proceeded to our auctioneer Ken and then one of my friends hiding behind a huge basket. If I paint them they will know who they are by their clothes. They don’t look a lot like them.  
This one however does look a lot like our esteemed adorable sweet president Susan. Warming up does help!! 

  
I actually won the silent auction on this wonderful acrylic by friend and Dr Sketchy/Saturday life modeling sketching friend Ruth Pearl. LOVE it. Now where to hang it?! 

Noodler Konrad and strathmore 500 Moxed Media sketchbook. Stick those sketchbooks in your lap and get your pens busy. If I can sketch in the middle of 200 people I  know you can do it too. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 623 – a bit more France 

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Arrowmonches Les Bains in Normandy near the D Day invasion  site. Charming quintessential French village by the seaside. Some of the WW2 beach defenses still remain out in the breakers. 

We had a delicious coq au vin lunch at Brasserie 6 Juin.  

I almost missed the bus drawing this picture. 😳 I could have happily sat there drawing the village all afternoon while the others went to the landing sites but it would have been a LONG walk back to the boat moored at quai in Rouen. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx dreaming of France 

Day 621-Duval Street 

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  I love this beautiful old episcopal church on Duval. St Pauls is supposedly haunted by the sea captain that donated the land to the church. He haunts the tower. 
 
Here’s another view of St Pauls tower against the bright blue Caribbean sky. 

More about Haunted Key West. Great ghost tour. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 611 – Stick fun!

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 I have been playing with my stick bamboo stick all week. Done a sketch everyday. The Carbon Black ink from Gouletpens works best with my stick. Not the India ink. It seems to load on the stick better. 

Anyway after I tried to shade the ibis in the back grey since he’s in the shadow I decided to do negative painting in the background letting the ink puddles bleed into the brush water to make various shades of grey. 

It seems impossible to get control of that ink flow. It leaves a lot of hard edges which are great for Key West underbrush but not on a bird. 

After the grey puddles dried a little I went back in and drew ink lines in for sticks on the ground. 

  
If I could change this I would get rid of the grey on the farthest back ibis. 

  
This is yesterday’s ibis. I actually like them except for all the black. These are young ibis and have a lot of mottled grey on their necks. 

Maybe I will redraw them and add some background? I think they are funny. The Ibis at the Key West Wildlife Center are beggars and wait for snacks aka dog food that was fed to them. 

  
My favorite still are the chickens. I don’t know why but I LOVE chickens. 

Did I say writing with a stick does not produce the most graceful writing?  

 
 Here’s another chicken sketch done earlier.  I can’t imagine dong this on location. I would have an inky mess everywhere.  Not good when it’s permanent and very black!! 

I also had a paper problem. I used my beloved 93 # Aquabee first but the ink is so thick from the stick that I got out my #98 Canson mixed media sketchbook and used it. No more ink soaking they the paper. At least not yet. 
And here’s Livia again.  One of the first sketches withy the stick  from last Sunday. I don’t know why I didn’t notice one of her legs is smaller than the other. But that’s an easy fix. Sketching frequently had a lot of surprises like a too skinny leg. 
Enjoy your day. Happy stick sketching. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 609 -The Party’s Over

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This is the last sketch done during Wet Paint party. I drew Sallie doing check out as we waited to pick up painting. Thank goodness Sallie bought mine. 

  

This sketch started the quotes.  I started to write “Even James has a cell phone” but I thought it would be more fun to write a JB quote. Did you know there’s a website with endless James Bond movie quotes?! 

 

 Hope I didn’t post this one but evidently the modern James Bond likes his cell phone!  I only drew a bakers dozen James Bond sketches si it gets confusing. 

Thanks for reading!! 

Margaret xxx

Day 608 How many More?

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Hard to resist drawing James with one of his many ladies.  Turns out the girl in the foreground is actually newly wed to James Bond who you can see in the background. 

 
I still haven’t painted this. It’s not very big 6×9″maybe. Lots of tiny details but who knows it might actually be fun for a big painting?

  
I have a few pages of these….the models changed their poses before au had a chance to finish them but I still think they are interesting especially the girl on the right. She managed to twist her hands in front of her body planting her hands on her hip bones and HOLDING the pose. Wow!

Thanks for reading.  I still have quite a few French sketches I have yet to post too. Hoping to get to them soon. 

Margaret xxx

Day 607 – 22 Sketches

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When you do that many you can post sketches for a week or more never repeating yourself. The girls costumes begged to be painted and the  many columns lining Sacred Heart. Great fun to paint wet on wet. 

 
The second or third sketch I did that night.  I had not quite warmed up.  Gouache is great for covering the background fast. When you have 22 sketches to paint you better have something that gets done quickly besides the sketching.  

  

One day when I grow up I want to paint urban sketches like this one by Al Beyer done in India a couple of years ago. Can you see the moped flying by? This is a big oil painting 3×4′ not a tiny sketch but definitely falls in the urban “sketching” genre. You can see more of his work here but sadly non of his urban sketching he does on his Maymester trips abroad – India – China – and this year Cambodia. Watch out Angkor Wat. 

Thanks for reading!

Margaret xxx

Day 604 – Another Bond or two

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    I did say I have twenty two of these right?!! This is one of my favorites.  I like Sacred Heart as the background. As a deconsecrated CatholicChurch it’s a great background. 


One of my favorites of the Bond girls.  She had a flowing black negligee on with sheer sleeves.  That was a challenge to paint.  I first painted the arm. Let it dry and then over painted it with a watery black as I painted the whole negligee. 

 I really wanted to put a bubble for two quote but couldn’t figure out how to do that. Like the red hair against the cobalt background and of course the splatters. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 601 – a few more sketches 

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  What else?!There are only 22 of them. 

  I actually finished this one yesterday. I started it when he was flipping thru poses and abandoned it for a clean page. I finally gave up and begged him to hold the pose till I finished.  And he did a super job doing just that!! Thanks James!! 

Love the energy in the orange gouache do lines in the background.  

  

Loved his 70s leisure suit look with his mint green shoes. The lady in black could hold a rock solid interesting pose. Neither of them moved which made for great sketching. 

 

The golden girl could hold the most interesting poses. She’s actually painted  with my beloved gold wink of Stella glitter pen and yellow ochre but sadly it does not show without bright lights.  

And u know what that ledger paper means. The ink smeared. 😁

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx