Happy New Year Sunflower ~ Acrylic Painting

"Happy New Year Sunflower"
6" x 6"
$40 purchased through the Canvas by Canvas web site

My coffee and I got the the computer this morning and found a message from Connie about check out my blog. She didn't have to work today and was up early getting back into her blog and has she ever thrown down the gauntlet to the rest of us. She is saying she's going to post each day. Now how is that for a hard act to follow. She was very complimentary of my blog but there is one sentence I need her to explain.." Even if you don't have time to read all she has to offer, you'll enjoy her paintings, ripe with juicy color". Does this sound like to you she is saying I'm a little verbose? I see that Margie has already posted some of our minis on the CBC blog that we painted today at the Upstairs Gallery. We rent the studio space once a week for CBC members to paint assignments or something personal. Today Margie, Connie, Cindy Y, Maryann and I painted some of our assignments for the Neil Sperry Garden Show February 29-March 2.


Connie, Maryann, and Cindy Y
Margie joined us for lunch and painting afterward. Since we all have good intentions the first day of the New Year we opted for Souper Salad restaurant and our intentions were good but the gingerbread and ice cream were very appealing. I didn't see a black-eyed pea on the menu so I'm cooking mine now. In Texas we think we have to eat some black-eyed peas on New Year's Day to give us good luck throughout the year. I soaked them overnight and I have some ham to eat with them and just so I eat them before 12:00 midnight, I'm covered. If you'd like to read about this holiday, the oldest of all holidays go here to read more about it. It seems the early Babylonian's most popular resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment.
Some of CBC members met at Maryann's Monday morning, Dec. 31, (before a business trip in the afternoon) and we watched a new Hugh Greer dvd on acrylic painting. I decided I'd try my sunflower using his palette of Quinacridone Magenta, Indanthrene (Anthraquinone) Blue, Titanium White, Cerulean Blue, Diarylide yellow, and sometimes Pyrole Red. I thought I did pretty good but when I got home and looked over my notes again, I didn't use Indanthrene Blue..in fact, I didn't even own any so now I'll have to go art shopping. I tried to stay within the palette because it would sure help in carting supplies around but I had to keep dipping in my little pill box containers of other colors I can't live without like light blue violet. I'll post a photo of these pill boxes later as we got the idea from an Elin Pendleton video. I did use some of his tips, or I adapted some like staining the canvas and putting gel on it, which I do sometimes anyway. I guess to really be truthful, I didn't do much of anything that Hugh suggested. I didn't have his yellow either. It's a little like cooking. You look at the recipe and end up doing it your way. Today I used Cadmium Orange to stain the canvas (he suggested the Quin Magenta and Yellow mixture). I love painting sunflowers and have done this one in a watercolor before with some cone flowers. This time my cone flower was not cooperating so I just painted it out. This feature is a wonderful advantage with acrylics.
May you have good luck this year whether you ate your black-eyed peas or not today. Since we painted today to start out the new year I hope there will be many more painting days to follow in '08.

Other blogs where I post:

http://artistfoodnetwork.blogspot.com

http://canvasbycanvas.blogspot.com

http://myspace.com/nancystandlee

TO PURCHASE PAINTINGS: Go to Paypal on http://nancystandlee.blogspot.com

Eat Well ~ Paint Your Food ~ Laugh Often