Category: Usk

Day 437 – Sacred Heart

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  A beautiful old deconsecrated Catholic Church in downtown Augusta. Supposedly it even has a ghost in one of the bell towers.  

  It’s hard to get a clear view of the entire front of the church. Trees have been planted that block the view so I only drew the top. 

I knew the sketch had problems when it was drawn but painted it anyway.  Painted with my Isabey mop #2. No control over it and should have changed to a sable to even up the towers.  Oh well.  I think it might be my Rouen cathedral to paint over and over. 

From Wikipedia 

It was built by Jesuit priests and its first service was on December 2, 1900. The church had been in Augusta for 70 years, until it closed in 1971 due to modern suburban advancements. While the building was vacant, it endured much vandalism and was near destruction.
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.[1]
In 1987, the Knox Foundation renovated the building and opened as a vibrant center of the city for cultural events. The building now host events such as wine festivals, choral concerts, and Christmas events. It is one of the best examples of redeveloping downtown Augusta.

More Sacred Heart tomorrow. The inside!! 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx whose actually reading a book instead of drawing or painting. 

Day 436 – Ben

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Ben – watercolor on crescent watercolor board 28″  x 20″ SOLD!!

This painting has taken about three weeks working on it off and on.

     

 Here are a few in progress photos of it. I use my cell phone to stand away from the painting and judge it’s progress. 
  His legs seem a bit short but I have measured and measured against the original photo and they are right. The photo is just taken at an off angle. 

   

    
 Thanks for reading!!

Margaret xxx off to sketch live at Arts in the Heart.  Eeeekkkk!!!

Day 433- WIP Savannah Riverwalk

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 pleased with progress off to class so moh later as my grandson Henry says. 

  Calling it done.  My weapons of choice were an Isabey #2 squirrel mop and a Lamy Vista fine point with an ink converter lapsed wit carbon platinum black ink. Mop is from Cheap Joes expensive but worth it and cheaper than Dick Blick. I got the pen and converter from Amazon but the ink from Goulet. The Amazon ink was NOT waterproof though it appeared to be the same ink. Another good waterproof ink is Noodlers Lexington Grey from Sam Flaxs Atlanta and de Artrementis DOCUMENT Brown from Goulet pens. 

  

Colors used cerulean and cobalt sky. Aurelion yellow, Quinn gold in roof. burnt sienna quin burnt orange inathradone for the Sphinx. Quin gold hookers green olive green and green hematite with burnt umber in greenery. Piemonte and cobalt blue shadows on buildings and sidewalks. 

 

The sketch Lamy on strathmore 500 mixed media

If you like this style of sketching and painting aka urban sketching sign up for Marc Holmes class on Craftsy. Sign up thru his site http://citizensketcher.com/2015/08/29/travel-sketching-in-mixed-media-lesson-sneak-peek-silhouette-shapes/ for a $10 discount. A good deal for $20 and do it at your leisure. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 433 Savannah Sketches

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 River walk

 Got eight Sketches done on Sunday. Four in Savannah and four on Tybee. All of the Savannah sketches were done with my Lamy Fine point. 

  It was hard to resist those x’s ones the building. I think they hold the building together for earthquakes. I added the people as they strolled thru my view. If you want to give it a go feel free to use my photo. 

  
The Cotton exchange and the Freemasons Hall. Also on River front. 

  
The Sphinx fountain in front of the Cotton Exchange. How could you resist this guy?! 

  
Wesley Square. Love the guys.  John Wesley not so much. Better extend that live oak tree!! Oops. Actually I extended the drawing adding the men last and didn’t fix the tree. I had places to go and things to see and a timed parking place!! 😄

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 431 – Sketching Tybee

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We packed up and left the house about ten am. The kids were off to Atlanta and it was SkEtcH TIME!! 

  These will all be watercolored soon but in the meantime I am sharing the sketches. I did eight total yesterday. A lot of painting soon. 

   
 If you want to draw this feel free.  Shrimp boat photos are hard to come by.   
 I found the perfect spot on a fishing dock when you first come one the island across from Fort Pulaski. The fisherman had to check out what I was doing.  
 So I drew him after he checked out my sketches. Think I better straighten up that bucket. Oops!! 

I switched to Lamy fine with this one. My noodles Konrad ran out of ink and my ahab was leaking. Guess I am going to have to fix it. 😳 That said I really liked the sketchiness of the fine line the Lamy does. 

  
Not the best pelican I have ever drawn but he will look better when he’s got some color on him. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 431 – Two point perspective Trick(TIP)

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  is tough to say the least. And mine was confused on this painting. The bricks were off especially above his head. Oops!! 

   

 Al Beyer showed me a technique that is easy to do when you have two point perspective, i.e. perspective with two vanishing points. 

  The vanishing points are to the right and left of the painting on the horizon line which runs across the top of the OPEN letters. 

ALL parallel lines should converge at the vanishing point. The runs of bricks make up these parallel lines as do the top and bottom of the window and the bottom of the OPEN letters. 

So how to get them done correctly.  

 Get a piece of paper. Lay the straight  edge along the horizon line. Then fold the bottom edge up to follow  parallel line. I chose the window sill. 

  This is the order you fold the paper in.  

 Match 1 to the horizon line to get fold 2. Of course you can’t see 1 now!!  

Here it is on the painting. 

  Make fold 3 by matching up fold 2 with the horizon line. 

  Then make fold 4  by folding the paper in half between the bottom fold and the #2 fold. 

Ideally before you paint match the horizon line on your folded paper with the horizon line on the painting draw along the folds with a watercolor pencil to transfer the lines to your painting.

Flip the paper with the horizon line on the bottom edge  to get the top lines. 

Some thinking is required. And the whole thing reverses on the right side to complicate your life. 😳  

  
  

What you end up with looks like this. The lines were drawn with a brown watercolor pencil. The horizon line comes off of his shoulder.

 

Let me know if you have more questions. I will try to answer them. Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day430- Food Food Food!!! 

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We ate at Taj of India the other day. I actually liked the sexond sketxh best til I painted them. Guess which one I like best now?!!funny how things change. I had trouble with my pentel brush running on this paper so I never painted the cerulean around the name of the restaurant. I read somewhere recently that the Pentel brush pen will sometimes run on certain paper. Guess I hit the jackpot on this one. Strathmore mixed media paper. Usually it behaves but I do have two brush pens. I may have used the Kuretake with carbon platinum black on the second one. No runny problems on it. You have to love that carbon platinum black. NEVER runs. 

My favorite dish was mine. The chicken tiki Marsala. It was painted with cad red then Quin gold.  Last I added touches of green apatite to the bowl. Lots of wet on wet.  The same colors were used on the kuchumba just watery. Quin gold and Inathridone on the rice. I actually used most of the same colors on all the dishes just in different variety. 

  
Having never been to Taj of India before I was hoping for an exotic interior. But no. Gold walls with one lonely wall hanging and an alcove. However there was a birthday party  in progress having a good time. The odd waiter who had hair like a rasta was added for some variety. His hair and huge beard were red and black. Very odd. He was a really sweet guy and kept the water glasses full. Good idea since the food was spicy. Not a spicy food eater. 

Skin tone – Quin red and yellow ochre. Burnt sienna for shadows sometimes with a touch of cerulean. 

Greys and darks. Made with Cerulean and burnt umber or burnt umber and ultramarine blue. Test them for a great variety of greys blacks and Browns. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 428 Busy as a bee 

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  Day 1 at the dog park. I hated this one but now I think I like it because of all the people and all the dogs. 

The seat on the right was completely misdrawn. And I tried to correct it. I had run out of room for the people OPPS.  

 
This group is my favorite part. Lots of dogs, lots of people. I sit in my car in the parking lot and try to catch the people and dogs before they move. I used a Noodler Creaper pen and de artrementis document brown ink. 

The bench was painted with Daniel smith green apatite which granulates and Inathradone with a touch of burnt umber.  All painted wet on wet. The bushes were painted like the background in Monday’s post though I didn’t take as long. 
 

 I did this one today. There was only one dog in the whole park!? And three people. Wonder where the other dogs were. 

  

These were drawn yesterday or the day before. The tall guy stood there right until I started to draw him and then he walked off. Same thing happened with the lady. Before that they had a BIG conversation.  

  

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 426 Costco

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Last week I sat in the corner at Costco’ s cafe area drawing the lunch crowd. There’s one table that has a 180 view and SCORE. I hid behind my purse. 

I really like the way the wall of boxes turned out in the background. And the way most of the people turned out. I actually painted out one guy whose drawing went astray.  Can you find him!? 

It was also hard getting all the bodies with legs as they came and went. 

Next time I will draw something easy like my polish sausage and the drink. 

  
This should be a fun place for urban sketching. Or at least getting pics of the roustabouts working. Check their webpage for when they visit near you. 

Thanks for reading.  Class tomorrow. Busy day!!

Margaret xxx