A quick sketch while on the beach today. Micro uniball Fabre Castro watercolor pencils stillman and birn Alpha
BYTW you can own this house for a mere $4.9 million. 5 bedroom 9 baths on the front.
My favorite watercolor pencils. Buy please tell me why there a pthalo blue instead of cerulean or cobalt. Someone please explain.
Margaret ready for bed. Another busy day manana xoxoxo
I darkened the buildings. Think it’s better bid. Still need to work on the big bush on the right. Maybe hmm well heading to the beach. Been baking all day. 2 loaves of banana bread. 
Peanut butter cookies
The best wheat bread I have ever eaten. Yum
Pot kitty pic. They love my pots. Silly kitties. 
The back porch pile.
View from the beach house crows nest.
Margaret who is Tahred now. Xoxoxo but I have my painting stuff packed for the beach.
So I have quit now. Impossible to knock out that yellow and make a nice tin roof on the house like a Low Country Cottage would have.
Bytw in case u were wondering the Low Country is the coastal area of South Carolina starting around Orangeburg about 90 miles from the coast. A slower way of life.
Our family has been making these cookies for as long as I can remember. Originally on the back of the Quaker Oatmeal box.
I didn’t wet this watercolor pencil because I was afraid it would smear the ink. What is with that ink?! Should be permanent.
Tootsie short for Tootsie roll actually came in the house today. Oh my.
A few more kittie pics because who doesn’t love kitty pics?!!
Margaret whose made two loaves of bread and hand made artisan pizza today as well as a jillion other things now calling it quits. Oh wait ones still in the oven. Xoxoxox
Today’s painting. Somewhere in Europe.
Half sheet Cheap Joes Kilimanjaro 300# cold press. LOVE this paper. So easy to lift color from the wrong spot like when my sloppy painting gets a dark where it should be white. Eeekkk.
Now about the painting. I took a day long class from Vlad Yesileyev today. Oh my did I learn a lot. MAYBE it’s finally getting thru my thick head. Lol.
Draw the shapes
The Order of Importance!!
Same thing with painting.
So this is what we did.
The photo
The value sketch. Extremely important to determine focal point and details.
The sketch. Half sheet is 22×15″
First wash. Lightest lights in the focal area. Yellow ochre alizarin and cobalt very watery w some cad orange and burnt sienna.
Eek. Half tones running wild with that black. Trying to loose the building edge but NOPE and ending up black. Odd now that it’s dry it doesn’t look like that. Sometimes in watercolor what U think is a train wreck isn’t.
So watch 
More washes lots of splattering. The dark mess on the bottom right is now light. Hmmm how did that happen?!!
I love flying paint brushes. 🤗🤗🤗
Close to the right colors. Adding details aka last steps. I used a large oil brush to paint a lot of the darks. Lots of fun!! Who knew. Thanks Vlad for the idea.
I meant the left door to be the focal point but I think I have the right door as the focal paint. What do u think?!
Adding details. Who knew wires were even round NOT a flat line so should be dry brushed. Vlad did. What that man knows. Maybe in my next lifetime I will know it. 😊
And putting my feet up with a glass of wine and some cheese. Time to watch Biden on CNN.
Today’s pot kitty shot. Mind u we have had hours of monsoons from Sally and I am near Augusta GA- hours drive from Mobile.
Pot sitting must be really good even when it’s soaked. 🤣😂😅 Margaret Xoxoxox
This one needs some darks. I don’t know how I DO NOT get them dark enough. I used a piece of Kilimanjaro 140#cp because I have a lot of it. Nice paper. I guess I need to give it the color test to see if it takes color like the 300 lb Kilimanjaro does. I found two more pieces of that but Cheap Joes is having a sale so I would like to get more while they have free shipping over $35.
I also think I need to make the windows darker and make the building look rockier. Maybe a few more darks on the big bush on the right. I was too tired this evening to do anymore. The photo somewhere in Provence
The sketch.
First washes. So light. There was a time when I made these very dark. So hurrah. Progress. Let it fly with a big kolinsky sable.
Sky wash and the bushes washed in.
First washes on the buildings.
Bushes begin. Can yellow cobalt yellow ochre. Bush Darks ultramarine and indigo. The place purple is alizarin dioxzine cobalt and yellow ochre. A greyed purpley bluey color
More Darks under the arbor. Alizarin cobalt and burnt umber Darks added in the buildings. Lots more browns added to it. And the required cobalt and alizarin dioxzine mix.
And here we are again needing more work groan.
Hugs. Ready for bed. Margaret Xoxoxox. Off to the beach Tuesday. Packing tomorrow. Hasta la vista Xoxoxox
And of course more work to do on it. Fun painting the palm trees though couldn’t get them dark enough the first time round.
Arches 280 cold press.
I know I am going to try to paint the roof grey. Will paint some yellow on a scrap and then paint colors over it to see what turns it grey like a metal roof. Thinking purple will. Maybe on the blue side. We shall see. Will posts my tests too.
The photo. Kind of nondescript right??! Really in Cortez FL but I have seen 100 like it in the low country.
Value sketch.
The sketch.
First wash
Second wash. Actually a lot lighter than the photo
Adding darks. Should be one shot but I never get them dark enough.
And more darks.
Done for now. Definitely needs work. Thinking lighten the small palm in the middle because the chair is the focal point NOT that palm.
Tomorrow right?!! Margaret xoxoxo
So I did. Now the focus is on tractor not it’s tire. Woohoo. Progress.
Finally I know that I have learned something taking the paint alongs with Vlad and that I can do it ON MY OWN. Hallelujah
Because the focal point is the point of highest contrast. Anything else should be greyed out. The focal point should be on a third point. 
And this one is done. See how your eye goes right to the white boat on the left top?! FOCAL POINT!!!
Today I spent some time emphasizing it. 
Before. The boat did stand out but now it really goes boing LOOK AT ME! It was killer trying to straighten out the wash not he right side. Was not sure of the mix!!!
NEVER EVER stop a wash w a HARD LINE. What was I thinking?!!!
Ok so I like to draw vehicles. If I had my big sketchbook and fav juicy Derwent sketching pencil I probably would have drawn the cars at Costco or Chic Fil A drive through today. 
BUT NOPE so I drew the tractor at Good Earth a local store that sells local produce. Great tomatoes green beans corn peaches apples and some locally produced items like my favorite popsicles King of Pops.
Today o realized there was a convenient place to draw the tractor and it’s trailer. I added some of the plants and moved some around for a more interesting arrangement a la Vlad recommends. Why take the class if u don’t give it a try?! If I had a pencil I would have done a value sketch.
Pilot micro pen Fabriano Venezia sketchbook. Tiny thing postcard sized. Sooner or later paint when I get around to it. It would love some paint. Maybe when I finish this one tomorrow.
Kitty taming coming up tomorrow. Aren’t they adorable?
Top-Bottom
Tiger 1 or 2 (twins), Blackie and Halley short for Halloween kitty. Her twin sister is Weenie. 🤣
Xoxoxoxo Margaret Tahred from shopping hauling groceries upstairs and then washing them all. Endless washing washing washing.
😘
Today I took another fascinating Zoom online class with Vlad Yesilesev in Value Sketching today. He always does one before he paints a scene or a photo.
These value sketches will be used for this months paint alongs on Sunday afternoons.
He says a value sketch determines your Composition and Value which are the most important things in any painting.
After you determine your Composition you do Value with the highest contrast in your focal point with lightest and darkest. There will also be more detail in this area. NEVER copy a photo.
It does not have to be pretty.
So here’s what we did today. 
The photo. Kind of Ho hum boring. 
Cortez Fl Cottage cropped. changed a lot hasn’t it??!
The value sketch. The Adirondack chair is the focal point. I think these things are really cool. That chair just really pops when you see it in person.
Venice
Cropped.
You can highlight what you want to like that great arches bridge.
Provence
This one was not cropped.
My value sketch. Now to try to do this on my own before I forget how. So little time and so much to do.
Margaret putting her feet up for now. Xoxoxo
Fifty miles from Sarasota lies the small fishing town of Cortez.
15×22″ of well behaved Cheap Joes Kilimanjaro cold press. LOVED painting on it esp when I consider the price of $54 for ten sheets. What a deal. I also used ALOT of Cheap Joes American Journey paints like yesterday’s cobalt of the paper tests. Why you ask?? Good bright colors. HUGE 37 ml tubes for the price of 15 ml tubes. When you paint with Vlad you go through a ton of paint so the American Journey never gets a chance to dry out. Once it’s dry it won’t rewet easily like my favorites Holbein and M Graham.
Ok Needs some more work like why did I stop the water on the right side. Hmmmm and a few more darks.
The photo
The value study.
Getting sketch started .
Finishing that up.
First wash. Always interesting how the little grey marks that are so pale in the water show up in the last washes.
Lots of greys yellow ochre gold cobalt and some Andrews turquoise on the left boat. In the end that turquoise looks white.
Interesting I think.
Sky done. Andrews turquoise cobalt and some neutral tint on the blue side. Then last minute indigo on the left.
Trees done and boats starting to appear. Trees are cad yellow cobalt neutral tint and yellow ochre oh and burnt umber. All mixed to the green side.
And now they are really showing up. Why did I forget to paint the back end of the left boat. Duh. The things you do when madly painting. And how did I twitch the one piling on the building to make it crooked?! A real duh. Hate things like that.
The boat has a nice glow doesn’t it?! Who knew.
Scratched some poles and masts into the left tree and a few branches on the right tree.
Suddenly most of it’s done. Time for details.
Wires and lines dark darks. People in the restaurant. And there’s that wash I didn’t Finish. That hard line is going to be difficult to fix.
And here it is now. I did work at fixing the piling. I am going to put a dark dark over the wonky one. See if it will knock it back.
Quitting for tonite. More manana.
Tv time. Been watching the Rob Lowe cop show on Brit Box. He’s the police chief in a Lincolnshire town called Boston. Good show full of strange quirky people.
Margaret xoxo w her feet up.
