Oil Pastel ~ San Francisco de Asis Church ~ Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

"Taos Church"
9" x 12" oil pastel on gesso board 3/4" cradle

I hope you had a very pleasant holiday today. I painted at the Upstairs Gallery studio with some of the Canvas by Canvas members and some of us experimented with oil pastels. We love to visit the local art shows in the spring and this year we discovered a New Mexico artist, Jennifer Cavan, and enjoyed her work. The peeps decided we wanted to explore this medium and discovered there is a lack of information. I ordered two books, The Pastel Book by Bill Creevy, and Oil Pastel for the Serious Beginner by John Elliot and bought some oil pastels and Ampersand gessobord.
Maryann was recently in Austin and went to the Ampersand store and purchased a few samples for us to practice on, also. For the reference, I had a photo I'd taken in 2003 of a Taos Church while attending an art workshop at the Sipapu Lodge.
Any comments, suggestions on how to improve the painting? I'm not for sure the best way to even sign my name. It's been about 96 degrees here this afternoon and after painting I had a few errands to run and was wondering when I returned to the car would I find a melted mess in my trunk but the painting survived. Now to go read and research on how best to varnish and seal this painting and when.
Tonight there is no more Jack and 24 but I still have Clint Eastwood's Birthday to celebrate. Oh, darlin', I can't believe you're 80. Call me anyway. I loved you in "The Bridges of Madison County."

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ARLINGTON TEXAS ~ ARTIST NANCY STANDLEE ~ DAILY PAINTER ~
CONTEMPORARY ~ WATERCOLOR ~ ACRYLIC ~ COLLAGE ~ GOUACHE
ABSTRACT ~ EXPRESSIONIST ~ ART FOR SALE ~ FIGURATIVE ~ MIXED MEDIA ~ ALTERED BOOKS

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Art Journal Program ~ Graham, TX ~ Pear 2 ~ by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Pear

Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas 8" x 8"

I posted a Pear on this date HERE.
Do you like to paint pears? I do. I learned about pears in a Robert Burridge workshop and don't paint them as much as I'd like. Check out Bob's Blog for one of his pears HERE.

Yesterday, Thursday, my Canvas by Canvas artist friends, Connie and Margie, drove to Graham, Texas with me for a program I presented, "How to Journal Introduction" at 2:00 for their Art Guild. They meet in the restored Old Post Office Museum and Art Center and it was a lovely setting to be surrounded by art and history. I left with some resolves from the members to begin a journal. Wow!
I brought some of my art journals to share about how I began journaling and materials I use. In closing, the members took a watercolor card and used some of my watercolor palettes to make a card for a personal journal entry. Blick Art materials were so gracious to provide each with a goody bag filled with a brush, a $5.00 gift coupon and a current sale catalog.
On my journal page where I recorded the event this morning in my journal, I wrote over and around the figures I've been practicing on from the Skip Lawrence DVD on jelly bean figures. You will recall I'd posted several of the days activities about his workshop recently.

I feel very strongly about the art journal and love to share my views and methods.

In Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones", she expresses how I feel about art journals You will recall I'd posted several of the days activities about his workshop recently.

"It is important to say the names of who we are, the names of the places we have lived, and to write the details of our lives. We have lived; our moments are important....We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important."

View the slide show below to see some photos. Mouse over for the caption.

And as far as the last slide about the Redneck at Sonic. OK I didn't drive in close enough and was not wanting to get out of the car to press the call button. I know it looks like a commode brush but it's a garment/car seat brush. You might like to know the call button was activated after several tries and we stayed in the car to place our orders. Connie was the smartie who just had to take the photo.

"Time to Move On" ~ Watercolor Yes panel ~ by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

"Time to Move On"
10" x 8" Watercolor, mixed media on Yes panel

I entered this painting today in Jerry's Artarama Lucas painting contest and the deadline is May 31 so if you have any Lucas painting products, acrylic, watercolor, oil or acrylic you might want to enter. It states on the entry form you will receive an email that Jerry received the entry. So far I haven't received notification so I will call to confirm later tomorrow. An artist is allowed two paintings and there isn't an entry fee and nice gift cards.
I used my Lucas Travel palette shown on this post. The artwork must be comprised of at least 50% Lucas paint. I added some white from another brand and some Caran d'Ache Neocolor II crayons.
Let me know what type of finish you use on a Yes canvas. I used a clear acrylic spray finish. In fact, I used and intermixed several things I hope "things" will stay on. More than anything I was experimenting on the finish. I like the effect of the watercolor on the Yes canvas and plan to use it again. It lifts and blends super easy. I first heard about this canvas at the Liz Hill Workshop last year. See my blog post HERE.

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ARLINGTON TEXAS ~ ARTIST NANCY STANDLEE ~ DAILY PAINTER ~
CONTEMPORARY ~ WATERCOLOR ~ ACRYLIC ~ COLLAGE ~ GOUACHE
ABSTRACT ~ EXPRESSIONIST ~ ART FOR SALE ~ FIGURATIVE ~ MIXED MEDIA ~ ALTERED BOOKS

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Acrylic Painting ~ Art in the Park ~ by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

"The Silver Comb" SOLD
Acrylic on Textured Gallery Wrapped Canvas 18" x 24"

Pablo Picasso said "I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else." That is exactly what happened in the above painting. I've forgotten how it began other than adding lots of texture. It ended up looking like a Spanish lady and when I Googled Spanish Lady I found the Celtic Woman group singing this on YouTube and in the lyrics it mentions her silver comb. I used Lascaux Perlacryl Iridescent Acrylics along with regular acrylics and it makes it very difficult to photograph but gives the painting a different metallic pearl look. I've had these paints for years and never know how to use them.
Today I'm putting a coat of protective varnish on the painting to take to the Art in the Park show Saturday at the Arlington Highlands.

The Arlington Highlands and F6 Gallery presents Art in the Park. The event features over 100 various artists from the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex combined with the retailers of Arlington Highlands to offer the community a great day of fun for all to entertain. We have been given a parking space to set up and a table and a chair and that's probably what my space will be. There won't be any selling but a day of browsing and visiting. There may be some wind so we're already been advised to bring some rocks. I'm not an outdoor show kind of gal so this should be interesting but I invite anyone out in the area to stop by and say hello. In the booth next to mine, 134, will be Canvas by Canvas so we will get some peep time. Come anytime from 12:00 to 5:00 PM.

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BLOG.............Nancy Standlee Art Blog

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ARLINGTON TEXAS ~ ARTIST NANCY STANDLEE ~ DAILY PAINTER ~
CONTEMPORARY ~ WATERCOLOR ~ ACRYLIC ~ COLLAGE ~ GOUACHE
ABSTRACT ~ EXPRESSIONIST ~ ART FOR SALE ~ FIGURATIVE ~ MIXED MEDIA ~ ALTERED BOOKS

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Skip Lawrence Workshop ~ Day 5, Friday ~ Watercolor and Acrylic by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Friday's Acrylic on 200 lb. watercolor paper 11" x 15"
I guess this is my least favorite painting I did all week in the Skip Lawrence workshop and I will work on it some more. I couldn't wait to get back to my acrylics and then they gave me trouble. One thing I was looking at a photo I'd taken of two women walking and I think I tried to make them too realistic and the other work I'd done during the week was more from memory. Skip's next workshops can be found on his website. Skip and Christopher Schink are editors and chief contributors of The Palette Magazine and it's filled with ideas and lessons on painting. Back issues are available.

Our class.. and thanks to Ron Stephens for sending me one of his photographs.
This is taken from the back of the room, zoomed in through the demo mirror above and remember that in the slide show of some of Skip's paintings so there is some distortion in color and shape. On Friday Skip agreed to an acrylic demo and I brought some fluid acrylics, paper plates and brushes and gessoed paper for him to use. He asked for a red, yellow and blue, black and white gesso. He chose to paint on his on 300 lb paper that was not gessoed. Thanks to Skip for doing this for us. I thought the readers would find it interesting to see how he places the colors in one disposable plate and works from there. I certainly did and then tried it with the above painting. In the critique he said that I'm a colorist and "forget my values".
In the following slide show the work is from Skip's demo and some paintings he brought with him and remember some of the photos were taken through the overhead mirror and from my tv screen. I mentioned I have his color dvd and I tried taking a photo from the tv of the finished painting and it works ..somewhat. This was not a figure workshop and we didn't have models to pose. Some in the class painted animals, dogs, cats, and horses but I like to paint figures and so it's again trying to decide watercolor or acrylic? (Mouse over for captions)

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ARLINGTON TEXAS ~ ARTIST NANCY STANDLEE ~ DAILY PAINTER ~
CONTEMPORARY ~ WATERCOLOR ~ ACRYLIC ~ COLLAGE ~ GOUACHE
ABSTRACT ~ EXPRESSIONIST ~ ART FOR SALE ~ FIGURATIVE ~ MIXED MEDIA ~ ALTERED BOOKS

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Skip Lawrence Workshop ~ Day 4, Thursday ~ Watercolor by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Watercolor, mixed media on 140 lb watercolor paper
22" x 30"

Wow, did this sheet of paper look big and it looked so much larger than the Skip Lawrence demo I carried the paper on the support up to the front and measured to make sure Skip hadn't been painting on a half sheet. I was getting ready for the day's assignment about working from top to bottom or bottom to the top.. I never did get the terminology down correct. It was all about layers. After we saw a slide show about looking at figures and how different artists paint figures and that was a great slide show but Skip has a rule. Only he gets to narrate..OR he loses his train of thought. By now, by the fourth day the group acted like and felt like "friends" and we were always wanting to interrupt. I hope that was all and not just "me". I was using 140 lb. watercolor paper and he says the "professionals" use 300 lb. with a slight chuckle so it was necessary for me to anchor down the paper with his favorite Ace hardware tape. I'll discuss the steps in the next photos and you can click on them to enlarge.


I sketched a figure in pencil and charcoal. I don't think Skip used charcoal. In fact a lot of times I don't think he did much sketching. Wet the paper where the figure was. I found this out later as I wet a lot of my paper but later found out, he wet the area where the figure was to be painted.

Begin putting on your layers of color and work from transparent to opaque, something like a yellow, then a permanent rose and then a blue and begin to use less water. The paper will only hold so much water. You can tell it was still wet when I took the photo. Add some blue next.
Add some blues and anything else you fancy and start finding and adding some shapes, always searching for things that's yours and how to make the work your own. Somewhere about now you need to take a 2 hour break while some of this dries or you will get mud. Now you can add the opaques or add white paint to watercolor. My deal is I like to paint red haired women, can't stay out of my stamps and I like the women with a little attitude with a hint of a wing shape. I used some Caran d'Ache in the hair and for other accents. Skip said she looked like she had a tattoo. That's OK because I see a lot of tattoos at my family gatherings.

Blick Art Materials:
You rock, Blick Art Materials. I will be giving a program in Graham, TX. at the end of the month on art journaling and I asked for a donation to give to the attendees. When I arrived home Friday here was a big box filled with goody bags containing a Blick sale flyer, a $5 gift coupon and a Blick paintbrush. Thanks Jen McCutcheon and Dick Blick for the very generous donation. Blick has the Aquabee Super Deluxe Sketchbook that I like to use for journal keeping as it has 93 pound paper pages.

Please visit my web site and comment on my blog:

BLOG.............Nancy Standlee Art Blog

WEB SITE ........Nancy Standlee

WEB SITE ........Canvas By Canvas

ARLINGTON TEXAS ~ ARTIST NANCY STANDLEE ~ DAILY PAINTER ~
CONTEMPORARY ~ WATERCOLOR ~ ACRYLIC ~ COLLAGE ~ GOUACHE
ABSTRACT ~ EXPRESSIONIST ~ ART FOR SALE ~ FIGURATIVE ~ MIXED MEDIA ~ ALTERED BOOKS

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Skip Lawrence Workshop ~ Day 3, Wednesday ~ Watercolor by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Figure Watercolor 21" x 14
(some stamping, and Caran d'Ache)

Small Watercolor approx. 6" x 9" from Monday's starts

The Skip Lawrence workshop: Our days begin with a slide show discussing and showing examples of what our goal is for the day and for me, this is a good way to work. He talks about famous paintings and then Skip will demo and then we usually get some painting in before lunch and paint until about 2:30 and then we all benefit and enjoy a lengthy critique. Wednesday was all about the treatment of edges in designing a painting and in the top painting I tried to get a good variety of edges. It is really hard not to draw and fill in the blanks coloring book style. And yes, we want hard, soft and a variation of edges and then anything goes to get some interest such as scratch, splatter, smudging to give those edges some gradation and to travel from one shape to another in the process of connecting things. He kept telling us change colors but keep the same value. Things he has repeated are "You can't paint what it looks like but paint what it feels like" and "we separate things we should be connecting."
On the smaller painting above I took one of the Monday starts and painted and added some watercolor crayon to it. It's nice to have these extra starts to work on while others dry or you're wondering what the heck do I do now.
Wednesday was a long day for Skip as after class we had our SWS meeting and he gave a demo to a packed house. Stephen Quiller was there and some from his class at the Artists' Showplace.
I'll post slides of some of Skip's work later in the week. We are all enjoying the workshop and our workshop chairman, Pattie Bowler, has been taking care of all the details and doing a great job of taking care of us. She will be our next SWS president. Students are pushing their art supplies aside and eating at their work space or painting and eating and afraid to leave our upstairs cocoon ..afraid we'll miss something.

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ARLINGTON TEXAS ~ ARTIST NANCY STANDLEE ~ DAILY PAINTER ~
CONTEMPORARY ~ WATERCOLOR ~ ACRYLIC ~ COLLAGE ~ GOUACHE
ABSTRACT ~ EXPRESSIONIST ~ ART FOR SALE ~ FIGURATIVE ~ MIXED MEDIA ~ ALTERED BOOKS

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Skip Lawrence Workshop ~ Day 2, Tuesday ~ Watercolor by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Watercolor approx. 12" x 10


Watercolor Approximately 21" x 14"

Today it was about "A Lot and a Little" and Balance. Skip Lawrence presented a slide show giving examples of famous paintings to show a simple approach to design and in a short, short summary for example if you have a lot of busy, put in a little calm or if you have lots of large shapes make sure to add a few small shapes.
We could paint whatever we wanted but apply some of the ideas he presented in the demo and lecture with the admonition "Don't do what you always do, try something else." Today I began adding some pure clean colors and no opaque but I could use black and white as pure colors then have the rest of the painting in neutrals. I must admit these two looked a little blah and I did add a little color enhancement in Photoshop Elements.
In the critique at the end of the day, Skip liked the top painting better and one of the reasons the bottom one was the flowers at the neck looked too realistic and he wanted the figure to go into the background more.
What really happened on the top one was the result of a very sad portrait and I didn't care what happened to it and just started painting some figures and making marks. On the bottom one I began on a clean white sheet of paper with some drawing in pencil and charcoal and it was more labored. Maybe I need to start painting over old paintings? Some in the class are using acrylics. I know one thing for my own work, after using acrylics for awhile....I really like acrylics and I'm fighting the watercolor trying to get them to act like acrylics. Skip uses lots of watercolor pigment with little water. I finally brought in some oil painting bristle brushes today and I imagined my little watercolors were screaming without their little soft sables. Skip did say that for his larger work he does use acrylics but he can paint a full sheet figure with watercolor and it can make it do tricks like an acrylic. I can't. I think I may remove that "yellow hand/arm" tomorrow in the lower painting. It's definitely a bother to me.
Watch for a slide show later in the week of Skip's work and demos.

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BLOG.............Nancy Standlee Art Blog

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WEB SITE ........Canvas By Canvas

ARLINGTON TEXAS ~ ARTIST NANCY STANDLEE ~ DAILY PAINTER ~
CONTEMPORARY ~ WATERCOLOR ~ ACRYLIC ~ COLLAGE ~ GOUACHE
ABSTRACT ~ EXPRESSIONIST ~ ART FOR SALE ~ FIGURATIVE ~ MIXED MEDIA ~ ALTERED BOOKS

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Skip Lawrence Workshop ~ Watercolor and Acrylic by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Watercolor on 140 lb paper
Skip Lawrence is in Dallas for the Southwestern Watercolor Society for a 5 day workshop at Asel Art. Can you imagine the temptation of being upstairs and over one of the largest art supply stores in Dallas and being enticed at every break. Fortunately they do not run a tab but you pay at every purchase. Skip was scheduled in February but was snowed in and I think everyone showed up today as we have a full house. I will post a slide show later in the week of some of his demo paintings.
We spent the day talking about how art is personal and we explored how to make our art personal and unique to us. He cautioned us not to copy him but to take chances and paint some of our own ideas. Skip talked about Georgia O'Keeffe and how different her floral paintings were.

Georgia O'Keeffe - "I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to ... I found that I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way-- things I had no words for."


Skip talked to us about how a painting needs a good technique, design and ideas. To get us started we took a full sheet and taped it off into 9 sections and tried to turn some of our emotions into ideas. For example, sad, lonely, a sunny day, a party at Pattie's were some I tried. I didn't get finished but had to move on to start my larger painting. It was not working on my half sheet of paper so I turned it around and tried to find a mood and refined with some figures. It may or may not be finished.

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ARLINGTON TEXAS ~ ARTIST NANCY STANDLEE ~ DAILY PAINTER ~
CONTEMPORARY ~ WATERCOLOR ~ ACRYLIC ~ COLLAGE ~ GOUACHE
ABSTRACT ~ EXPRESSIONIST ~ ART FOR SALE ~ FIGURATIVE ~ MIXED MEDIA ~ ALTERED BOOKS

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"My Heart on a Monday" ~ Acrylic Abstract on Paper ~ by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

"My Heart on a Monday"
10" x 10" Acrylic on Paper

I've been making a stab at cleaning up in my studio and found this painting from the Robert Burridge workshop at Dena's in February. Why the delay? One Facebook poster put it well when she stated "It takes numerous breaks to access the situation." So in between assessments I'll post this. Bob has just begun a 5 day workshop this morning in Hot Springs, Arkansas and I have a good friend in attendance and I'm just thinking about all in the class this morning. I've often told Bob "There is no where else in the world I'd rather be on a Monday morning than in a Robert Burridge workshop." Joan on Facebook says "Bobette's aim higher".


Experimenting with Altered Book Journals:
I love writing and painting in a Canson All Media sketchbook or an Aquabee or Raffine Art Sketch - Something with 80 to 100 lb. paper that will accept water media but after reading more about altered books I wanted to try it. I have lots of old books around but didn't want to make a choice on which one I'd destroy so I made a trip to the local thrift store and found so many it was hard to make a choice. I eventually bought 3 - ranging from $1.00 to $2.00 and began gluing pages together. Now this can take awhile because finding the right glue takes a long time and I haven't found it yet. One has wrinkled badly but this one "The Low-Fat Ways to Cook Meat" is better and is has a ring binder so it can lay flat while working. Why do this? I feel like I can be expressively messy and hide secrets in these and if I need to tear out a page, o.k.
This first 2 pages in the altered book are all about "How Things Get Connected" and how your brain takes many detours and paths from one incident. I was on Facebook and saw Bob's photo of a wine barrel he'd painted for an auction through the Central Coast Wine Classic. My brain went wine barrel, rain barrel, cellar door and searching for the words for the "Oh, Playmate" song and making a journal entry after finding an antique book with other images. Then the trail got darker when I remembered a playmate and a cellar door. She took one of her father's cigarettes to try it out but chose a bad location, an old dried up fence row during a hot Texas summer. She caught the darn thing on fire but it was quickly put out but the smoke from the dried grasses and weeds was noticeable. She was placed in their dark cellar as punishment and I don't remember how long I just remember hearing her screams and cries. No one intervened because it was their family's business but it sure made a believer out of me. I saw her at our 50th high school reunion and I don't know if she smokes now or not. I didn't ask or ask about what happened that day. I was in college until I tried to "practice" smoking ..well maybe one other time but that's another story.
The book I chose to alter.

Bob and his Wine Barrel - the reason for the journal page.

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WEB SITE ........Canvas By Canvas

ARLINGTON TEXAS ~ ARTIST NANCY STANDLEE ~ DAILY PAINTER ~
CONTEMPORARY ~ WATERCOLOR ~ ACRYLIC ~ COLLAGE ~ GOUACHE
ABSTRACT ~ EXPRESSIONIST ~ ART FOR SALE ~ FIGURATIVE ~ MIXED MEDIA ~ ALTERED BOOKS

Contact NancyStandlee@sbcglobal.net