"Hearts to You" and Valentine Heart Healthy by Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

"Hearts to You"
12" x 12" acrylic on canvas

Bob Burridge had us painting hearts at the end of the workshop. (See previous posts for more about this workshop at Dena's Ranch.)His example is at the end of the post. These were fun and it was another way we learned more about negative painting.

This is one of Connie's foundation paintings on paper that she gave me (we traded paintings) and I used a gold paint around the edges and there is a camera glare at the bottom. I may go back in and glaze the gold with some red. I gave Connie a 5 x 7 landscape that I will post later. You might be interested in checking out some of Jim Dine's hearts. Jim likes to use common images that have personal meaning to him. Click HERE. These two are Bob's examples abovethat got us interested in painting hearts. Click HERE for the hearts on his website.
Painting day is over and it's time for the chips and dips. One night I did fix a black bean salsa that was heart healthy and delicious. I'm in the process of making some changes in my diet.

Healthy Hearts
I've been doing some reading and study about a better way to eat with a plant powered diet. I'm not promising I'll never eat another personal pan pizza but I have been doing some serious study about some alternatives. Check some of these books out from your library. I think you will find them enlightening. I graduated college with a BS in Home Economics in 1959 and this is far different from what we were taught and in turn taught our students.

"Eat to Live" Joel Furhman (I've had this book a long time but not much follow through until now) and the two volume set "Eat for Health"

"Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease" by Caldwell B. Esselstyn

"The China Study" by T. Colin Campbell

"The Engine 2 Diet" by Rip Esselstyn (son of Caldwell B. and a Texas firefighter in Austin, TX)

(If you're a fan of Dr. Oz, Rip was on his show tonight discussing how to change your food lifestyle with small steps. He has a great website that breaks the 28 day plan down into weeks. Some recipes are included.

Click HERE to be taken to his website.

There is a good article here by Jane Brody about Michael Pollan's book, Food Rules.

Have some fun times painting some hearts and take care of your heart. Heart disease is the leading cause of death and join me in making a few food changes in taking care of our "valentines". Have a Happy Valentines Day.

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

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

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

Other blogs where I post:

Daily Painters of Texas

Daily Abstract Painters Gallery

Daily Painters Marketplace


TEXAS CONTEMPORARY ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST FINE ART DAILY PAINTER
NANCY STANDLEE ARLINGTON, TEXAS ART FOR SALE

Contact: NancyStandlee@sbcglobal.net

"Connie" ~ watercolor figure by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

"Connie"
15" x 22" Watercolor and Acrylic with Collage

I took a photograph of one of my Canvas by Canvas "sisters" at a bridal shower this summer and I have been wanting to paint it since. Several days ago I got out my Carla O'Connor Daniel Smith Gold Gesso (I love this stuff) and looked over my Liz Hill notes and got to work and finished the painting today. Liz likes to draw in charcoal and that's what I did first before I used watercolor for the features. I did not spray it and Liz says use a light hand and it won't smear. I used some stamping and some collage papers that I'd printed. I usually like to give my ladies red hair but Connie is a blond so I opted for some lavender tones and exaggerated the amount of hair and the color.

You will probably be seeing more paintings of Connie and Maryann, another "sister", as we had a model/photo session yesterday and played dress up and tried to pose like a "real" model. We had hats, long black gloves, scarves, strapless stuff, long skirts and head wraps. We laughed so hard it's a wonder our chair didn't fall off our prop stage, but the model fee was modest. At age 74 just how serious can it be if you're in your San Miguel ruana and a strapless old KMart top. It just cost Connie and I Maryann's lunch since it was her birthday. The Mexican restaurant even threw in a Happy Birthday serenade and a sopapilla with whipped cream and a cherry.

Wanna have some girl friend fun and it doesn't even have to be your birthday. Get your friends together and have each one bring some outrageous clothes, dress up and take some photos for later paintings. Be sure and include someone in a do-rag. Connie has already named the painting where I was wearing one of Maryann's scarves around my head in a do-rag fashion with my Terminator arms exposed as "Waitin' for Willie". On second thought we may want to hire a model next time.

Please visit my website and comment on my blog.
Find me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

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

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

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

Other blogs where I post:

Daily Painters of Texas

Daily Abstract Painters Gallery

Daily Painters Marketplace


TEXAS CONTEMPORARY ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST FINE ART DAILY PAINTER WATERCOLOR FIGURES
NANCY STANDLEE ARLINGTON, TEXAS ART FOR SALE

Contact: NancyStandlee@sbcglobal.net

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

Calypso Burden Series #7 of 10 ~ Backups ~ Email ~ Link ~ FaceBook

7.5" x 5.5" image
Acrylic on 140 lb. watercolor paper
The Calypso series #7 ~ A series of 10 images, all share some of the same vivid colors and technique of acrylic loosely applied onto a gessoed watercolor surface, ready for framing with or without glass as the acrylic has a medium applied for protection.
As I post more images and information on my art blog, I see the need for some kind of backup. I have made a copy of the Template. I am also emailing copies of my blog to myself. I have 2 email addresses and will use one of them for the copies. Here are my steps for Backup:

1. Blogger Template Backup:
Dashboard/Template/Edit
HTML/Backup/Restore Template/Download Full Template
I put it in a blog folder on my hard drive before I removed some of the html code.
2. Email Backup of Posts:
This does not give you a back up of your images – only the
text.
Dashboard/Settings/Show Email Post Links? / Yes/ Save Settings
At the end of the post, there will be a white envelope , click and fill in the
address to send. If you have enabled Google AutoFill you won’t even have to type
the information in. I have my copies archived in my Google Gmail account and I hope it will never be necessary to access them. I email them to myself after all the edits have been done.

I’ve been reading the HELP section trying to find the answer but I didn’t even know how to phrase the question but I tried this today and it works. For example: If I’m referencing something in my email or in another’s in a blog and I want to link to it here's what I do. On the home page of the blog everyone’s url is the same address. But I want to reference a specific post from my friends blog, Betty talking about A Cause for Celebration or Cindy’s post about Pretty in Pink and Connie’s Kick Up Your Heels . or Margie's Nancy’s Red Boots go to their side bar and find the post you want to reference and click on it and that will take you to a specific url when you are taken to that page, copy and paste it into the link button. That works if you want to refer to links within your own blog, also. See below. All of you may already know that but I didn’t.
I tried to register again in FaceBook. See Tuesday’s Post for my FaceBook experience. This time I made it. I registered for the Dallas/Fort Worth area as I overqualified for the high school or college age crowd. Don’t know what I will do now but I’m registered. A message from FB said I’m now able to email my friends and tell them I’m registered but my friends don’t belong to FB and are not in the database so no friends yet. I don’t think I know one person that uses Facebook.
At least there are 3 friends in Calypso Burden painting. I wonder if they met on FaceBook or in a painting class somewhere?