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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Betty Crocker ~ Art Journal Pages

7"x10" watercolor "Betty Crocker"
Why is it when you are trying to drop a few pounds for the new year, your cookbooks fall off the shelves, screaming "try me, cook me?" I stand by my goal and painted it instead.

This is Cindy and her portrait that I painted which won a SWA award. You can read about it on my blog post HERE. Cindy is a great cat painter and one of the reasons she got her cat Clementine was to have a ready model.
Not too long ago, Cindy and I made a long car trip to Little Rock to exhibit a CBC painting and we were in the car together 10 plus hours and the conversation would always turn to food. When she was a tall, willowy New York model she wanted little to do with the cooking of food, just partaking. One week before her wedding and at age 20 Cindy had a revelation that it was soon to fall her lot to be responsible for the food that would be served in her home. At that ninth hour, her dear mother came to the rescue with a plan that each night they'd cook together a new dish for dinner, including a side dish. She got down the basics of pot roast, meat loaf, smothered steak, fried pork chops, salmon croquettes, red beans with cornbread, creamed tuna on toast, and chicken fried steak. She laughs and says for the longest time she never wavered with the side dishes that went with the main course. For instance, if she served fried pork chops always expect to see gravy, rice and LeSueur peas on the plate. Cindy relates she learned well and that first pot roast was perfect and wowed her new husband; however, she forgot the left over roast stored in the oven and about a week later they began searching for this noxious odor. These days she cooks less and spends her spare time painting Clementine.

Art Journal Page 61

The year began right with painting in my journal with friends at Maryann's and then dinner with a professional friend I'd lost contact with at Fish City Grill. On Sunday a steak at Hoffbrau and then parts 1-5 of John Adams and oh, my, it was wonderful. I have learned to spell Abigail and have since corrected it in my journal. This movie has given me a renewed appreciation for our country and the sacrifices made by our founders. David McCullough has done a great service to America to bring these characters alive.
Here's the day I painted my cookbook. This is one of my favorite possessions given to me in 1957, a first edition and fifth printing. The poetry I ever remember is on page 302 "Apple pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze." I loved looking at instructions to make pineapple boats, grate my own coconut, and make sure I was serving my family from the basic 7 food groups. My mother sent me off to Tarleton Junior College, now Tarleton State University, in 1956 to major in Home Economics and Betty Crocker came along just like another text book that 2nd year. More boring medical stuff and oat bran muffins for cholesterol lowering and sometimes feeling like I'm moving in slow motion so - move it.

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Cindy and I went to the Gamut Gala opening of their new Art Couture Gallery and you can read about it on the previous post and see David Fisher in the slide show. Last night, January 13, he appeared in NCIS and fortunately he wasn't killed off. David we'll be watching for you again.
On Sunday a new dish at the Macaroni Grill and parts 6 and 7 of John Adams - winner of the 2009 Golden Globe for best mini-series/tv movie. On the credit extras on the dvd, I learned that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 50 years after signing of the Declaration of Independence. Wow. Jack is back in 24 and what a horrible drawing. I put sunglasses on him to cover him up but he still looks like a kid down the street instead of big, bad Jack.
Check out our Artist Food Network for one of Cindy's Favorite Recipes.