Pets to Pintos ~Art Journal Page by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Art Journal Page Kilimanjaro 140lb. Watercolor Journal

This is a page I will share in the art journaling workshop at Dena's Ranch in July. See previous posts for more details.
On the first day I will have the students to paint something they are familiar with - favorite food, kitchen utensil, ingredient, or pet. I don't have a pet but I took a photo of this fine looking dog in Ingram while Cindy and I were attending a Pat Weaver workshop. The animal was waiting patiently in the back of his truck for his daddy to come back from an errand. On another occasion we were delighted to find a young man who crawled in the bed of his truck to share his breakfast with his dog. I didn't want to be so obvious on that one and my photos weren't as clear. The owner wasn't around in Ingram and we felt free to take lots of photos but the dog never looked just real happy, maybe he didn't like to wait in the truck or have his photo taken. On this sketch I used the Pentel Pocket Brush pen that I learned about from Roz Stendahl's Blog.
Texans share food with their dogs and neighbors and you might find a big pot of pinto beans cooking on the largest burner for the human food. There is nothing better than a meal of pinto beans and cornbread and I never sit down to sort a cup or two of beans without thinking about my Mother. She has always given me good advice and I miss being able to give her a call and discuss an issue or ask for that advice but I remember this. "You buy the Casserole brand of pintos. They cook up tender and you bring me that brand."
I had a package on the counter and looked at the brand and see they are packaged by Russell E. Womack in Lubbock and they are a product of the USA, always a good thing.
Once upon a time (I am a former elementary librarian and still love stories that start with once upon a time) I was a Home Economics major and I was Mrs. Betty Crocker, cooking, entertaining, being a school mom, and serving dinner promptly at 5:00 PM with a homemade dessert for the grand finale. In my advancing years my thoughts have turned to art related activities but a pot of beans still have a central part of my menu plans. Now because they can be warmed up quickly and can give me more art time I love to have some cooked or in the freezer for an emergency and it was after one of these sorting, soaking and cooking times much to my chagrin and surprise sometime later I looked in my sink and found a pretty good sized plant growing out of the disposal. Oh, my gosh what is going on. Surprises that entail any part of plumbing are very scary. I gingerly tugged at it and saw a healthy growth of roots and realized one or more of the pintos had fallen into the sink depths and loved the dark and damp and sprouted and I knew in an instant I'd lost my Betty Crocker crown. I think I may have displaced it sometime before this incident, however. At the time I didn't take a photo but with the help of a plastic flower tucked in my yellow sink, I created an reenactment and a photo and a pinto bean sprout sketch. Now I'm into faster meals that give me longer art journaling time.
Join us at the workshop and paint your pet or your sprouted pintos.

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ARLINGTON TEXAS ~ ARTIST NANCY STANDLEE ~ DAILY PAINTER ~
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