Day 623 – a bit more France

March 16, 20162 Comments

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

March 14, 2016March 13, 20162 Comments

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!

March 4, 20164 Comments

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

March 2, 2016Leave a comment

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?

March 1, 2016Leave a comment

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

February 29, 2016Leave a comment

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

February 26, 20161 Comment

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

February 24, 20163 Comments

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

Day 600 – Wet Paint

February 22, 2016February 29, 2016Leave a comment

Will be posting the winner and the prize in a couple of smears. Thanks for sticking with me thru 600 days of consecutive posting. I wonder how long I will go on?!

Did I forget to say that this little mixed media angel I did flew away to a new home aka she sold at Wet Paint. Hurrah!! She’s stitches scribbled glued bubble wrap printed and three d. Genuine Lutheran hymnal pages in the background. A lot of fun!

But not as much fun as drawing the models at wet paint.

Another James Bond model sketch. I really need to fix his hand and his foot. Maybe. I had a lot of fun looking up James Bond quotes to write on the JB sketches.

Beautiful model that could hold a rock solid pose. She’s wearing turquoise culottes with huge buttons. The half you can’t see is white. Harlequin style. She has lost had spectator pumps on. I had forgotten about them til I saw hers. I had a pair I loved. All tan leather so I painted those instead of the two tone ones she had on

Thanks for reading. Will post the winner in a couple of days. Class today.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 599 The Name is Bond

February 21, 2016Leave a comment

James Bond -6×10″ Arches Carnet de Voyage HOT Press

Lots of fun last night sketching at Wet Paint party at Sacred Heart Cultural Center.

The Vintage Olie models were styling James Bond movie fashion style. Lucky Ruth Pearl and I had a table right next to one of their six pedestals as they rotated around the audience.

I really liked this just as it is EXCEPT all my gooey only fingerprints all over it. Sigh. The light we were drawing in was terrible and my beloved Noodler was leaking as usual. Not conducive to clean drawings.