Category: Watercolor

Day 630 – The Great Augusta Fire of 1916

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Anniversary was yesterday. 100 years ago everything down from 8th Street and east of Greene  Street to the river burned. 

  

We went to the Tuesday Music Live Concert at historic St Pauls which commemorated the anniversary with one of their Tuesday Convert series. 100 years ago yesterday the congregation gathered to pray the colonial era church would be saved from blaze devouring downtown. 

I drew this while I listened to the wonderful pianist. 

  

Here’s a shot of the sacristy and a video by a local historian Bill Kirby about the fire. 

   

 
A quick sketch I did a couple of years ago of the church from the street. 

  
And an exterior shot. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx 

  

Day 629 – Henry Time

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This weekend my sister Jan and I tagged teamed my sweet grandchildren Henry and Livia. Henry slowed down enough for me to sketch him watching Care Bears and playing with his cars his gramy bought him at Mc Donald’s and Publixs. 

  

  His dad asked me if I bought him a car at Publixs and I said Yes of course he asked for one and a rabbit for his sister and flowers for his mom but we knew daddy didn’t want anything but that ham we cooked!!

   
They also went to the zoo. When I asked Henry what his favorite part of the zoo was he told me you Gramy. What a kid. Lol.   

    
Last a bit of ink fun with my Kuretake brush pen. I just like the quote.  And it’s true. Hard to be perfect. 

I got the quote from the strathmore art on line sketchbook Art Ninja Graham Smiths class.  Check it out. It’s free.  I wish I drew glad as well as he does. Here is his website. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Reasons. 

Day 628 – Costco Love! 

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Urban sketching at Costco. And NO I did not eat a hotdog when I drew this. I usually do though. Probably good snacks this day whxib everybody knows are calorie free right?! 

I did hide in the corner behind my purse which is of course big enough to carry my sketchbook and pants. 

Tip: when you take the grandchildren to the zoo you don’t want your bevy purse loaded with sketching stuff when you pick up a 45 lb kid to look at the snakes Be sure to take your over the shoulder sketch purse with sketching stuff and the other important thing MONEY for the gift shop train and carousel!! 😋

  

These people were drawn as we all stood in the return line. I love to buy stuff and bring it back to Costco. They ALWAYS take stuff bought there back no questions other than can I Have your members card please. I do LOVE Costco!! 

Off to class. Need to go by Costco and fill up. Gas is always 20-25 cents cheaper!! And Booking a trip to Paris and maybe Lindon and Dublin via Iceland. No time to list colors but I did use the usual ones.

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 620 – River Island

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  Spent a delightful day yesterday with Ann Gilmore and Cyndy Epps painting on Mary Futrells back porch in River Island. We were the features artists on Augusta Symphony 7th Annual Kithcen Tour of homes.  
 


This is one of the things that I painted while I was there. The red trees are red oaks.  Did you know that this is the only time of the year you can tell they are red oaks- because they leaf out with a red blush. 

 
  

Yesterday was a deliciously perfect spring  day to spend on a back porch painting and talking the day away. What fun!! This was our view. 

I guess I was actually Plein air painting for once outside. Usually I stay out of the weather and paint in the car or thru the window at my house because it’s often far too hot or too buggy along the river. 

Colors used alizarin Winsor yellow cerulean cobalt dioxzine purple hematite green ultramarine blue burnt umber burnt sienna Quinacridone sienna. 

Thanks from 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 605 Another Saturday

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Ilania Acrylic 24 x 30ish”

Really liking today’s painting. This one is officially FOR SALE if she needs to come live at your house. 

  

This was painted almost entirely by the world’s cheapest brushes. They shed.  I had to  remove several bristles off the painting.  🙄 And they don’t hold an edge. They are raggedy but they make some great bold lines in the paint.   

Conversely I used some of the most expensive paint. All golden acrylic. Reason I say expensive is that I used Goldens Quin Nickel Azo Gold which was selling for $27.99 at Michaels the other day when I loaded up on white paint during their 40% off sale. Ouch!!  Glad I have had a new bottle of it waiting for the old bottle to be empty. 

Other colors it was painted with were ultramarine blue, pyrrole red, Zinc white and a smidge of burnt umber.  The only resin I used Zinc white was because it was the first tube of white picked up but it could just as well have been titanium white. 

White, pyrrole red and Quin nickel Azo gold make a great flesh color. 

    

Here she is at second break after about an hour of painting. Those brushes cover a lot of ground FAST!!  If I hadnt decided her face was a smidge to narrow she would have been done. I also didn’t like the shadow on the left arm. 
 

Forty minutes of painting.  Almost blocked in. Of course I had blocked her in four times at this point. 

First time I had the canvas vertical. I couldn’t see her calves or feet so that was not going to work. I turned the board and started over. 

Second time I decided I wanted her leg along the bottom of the canvas. Had to start over. 😁

Third time I didn’t quite get her to fill up the canvas.  😂

Fourth time I think I could have blocked her in with my eyes closed!! 

That’s about it for today. 

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