Gloria ~ Glorious Days with Gloria ~ Duck, NC ~ Nancy Standlee Art Blog

$25
5" x 7" Acrylic on canvas board
This small portrait is smaller than I usually paint and the colors are not as vivid but I love to try my hand at portraits and plan to do others. I named the painting Gloria, but it really reminds me a little of Helen Hunt and it doesn't look like Gloria. Gloria is the name chosen because several of the CBC group (but before it was organized) traveled to the Outer Banks, North Carolina to take a workshop with a long ago Virginia friend, Gloria Coker. She paints like I’d like to with very bright colors and in an impressionist style. We flew into Norfolk, Virginia. She has a beach house in Duck named the “Sketch Pad” and near the ocean but she was such an enthusiastic teacher and taskmaster we spent little time on the beach. Her forte was individual attention and getting us to find “our style” while working at our own level. I had met Gloria years ago (think 70's) while we were artist wantabe’s in Hampton, Va. She was already painting and selling fabulous watercolors and I have an early Gloria painting of her cats. I was very involved with batik and as I remember we probably traded a batik and a painting.

One distracting little activity we were prone to do during our photo ops were to display friends (who were absent) photos on sticks to include them in the activities. Gloria would be giving a demo and a head on a stick would appear behind the easel so the missing person would still be in the photo. Gloria indulged our little whims. This photo was taken at the airport before the heads were on a stick.

Gloria is in the process of developing a blog sometime during the summer. It will be a welcome bookmark and she says she will contribute a painting and recipe to our Artists Food Network.
I should have named the painting, “Glorious Days with Gloria” to remind us of those early mornings sitting on the covered deck drinking our coffee and planning and looking forward to a day of instruction and painting. Gloria, please let us know when your blog's grand opening will be.

CALYPSO MUSIC Series #3 of 10 by Nancy Standlee

7.5" x 5.5" image
Acrylic on 140 lb. watercolor paper
The Calypso series began at a paint-out with some of the Canvas by Canvas members. I’ve used the same bold color palette throughout the series. If you asked me if I could paint the figures again I’d have to say “I don’t know”. It was a moment when all senses were synchronized. I am amazed that hints and suggestions of paint can create an emotional response from the viewer and the viewer reads the painting as “I see a dancer or I see a woman with a child”. I read and collect a lot of art books and some titles I’ll share here, but this weekend I didn’t open a book or use a photo for reference for this group of acrylic paintings. I painted until a human form appeared and I kept painting until I could see a shape that was somewhat identifiable.
Camplin left this comment in the painting “Saturday Synchronicity” on my blog.

"Have you seen the Bay Area Figurative Movement artists? Here is a list of
artists for that movement: Elmer Bischoff, Adelie landis Bischoff, Joan Brown,
William Henry Brown, Theophilus Brown, Ann Hogle, Eleanor Kent, Bruce McGaw,
Manuel Neri, Nathan Oliveira, Joe Oddo, Clayton Pinkerton, Hassel Smith, James
Weeks, Paul Wonner.
I think it is important to look at other artists that are
doing similar things."

Because of that comment I ordered the book Bay Area Figurative Art: 1950-1965, by Caroline Jones today. If you’d like to read a description of the book you can click on the Amazon symbol and do a book search. I took a workshop and have a book by Robert Burridge, “Loosen Up” (available from his site) and he lists the figurative book as one of "Bob's Library of Favorites (for now). I ordered Elmer Bischoff: The Ethics of Paint also.
Series #4 for tomorrow or maybe a cupcake or a high heel – I’m flexible.