Cheerful and Colorful Paintings

Cheerful and Colorful Paintings in Oil, Acrylic, Mixed Media and Collage
nancystandlee@sbcglobal.net

Showing posts with label Corpus Christi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Corpus Christi. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

More Floral Warm Ups - Artists' Showplace ~ Art Journal Pages


Floral Warm Up Corpus #4

Floral Warm Up Corpus #5
Floral Warm Up Corpus #6

These are 9.5" x 6.5" acrylic on gesso watercolor paper and were completed in the Robert Burridge Workshop in Corpus Christi. See previous posts about the workshop.
I paint with a collaborative group of Texas artists, Canvas by Canvas, and we have become associates with Artists' Showplace Art Gallery. On Tuesday some of us hung our wall space, went to lunch (absolutely) and then trekked to Sam Moon's for some quick shopping. I had to buy a bag that has studs and sequins and hope my friends will still let me hang out with them. We will have a reception at Artists' Showplace November 14 and more info will follow.
NS, CY, BGH, MAS at Artists' Showplace after the hanging.
In Vino Veritas I painted the top and second center row squares, C and H and after looking at my Robert Burridge painting, I think more wine bottles will be in store for me. I love these colors. Stop by Artists' Showplace and see this one in person. You won't be sorry.

Art Journal Pages:

Here I was practicing on my rock painting. Watch for a future post about rocks and cigars. I first learned how to paint rocks in a Lynn McLain workshop several years ago in New Mexico so this was a practice.
Oh, what fun to go to college reunions. I attended Tarleton State, Stephenville, TX, when it was a 2 year college in 1954-1956 and now they are a University and no longer Plowboys but Texans. There are plans for a larger facility for the alumni meetings but for this weekend we had our Golden Reunion dinner under a large tent, rented from Aquila and Priscilla.
The weather corporated beautifully. The Gates Are Always Open is above the door at the nearby Alumni Relations House and trust me, the staff and director, Paul Koonsman, make us all feel at home. The house has recently been renovated and it was built in 1915 by then Tarleton president, James F. Cox at a cost of $2,800. Notes were found written on the walls during the restoration. This fall the enrollment at Tarleton hit 9,642 but when I was there that was not the case but the ratio of boys to girls was extreme and great percentages for having a date. Tarleton was such a perfect place for kids from the surrounding little towns to study and have the privilege of meeting great friends and sharing the Tarleton experience. Dr. Stuart Chilton was the faculty advisor for the newspaper, J-Tac and the purple annual, The Grassburr, and he was instrumental in getting the staff from those publications during 1953-1958 home for a reunion. I was the editor of the Grassburr in 1955-1956 and it was fun riding on the flat bed truck in the parade on Saturday and remembering old, carefree times and hugging a lot of grey haired seniors.

In the middle of all the Tarleton festivities, I had to leave for Corpus for the "Loose and Juicy Floral" Robert Burridge workshop. I usually work in the Canson all media book with watercolor but decided to do a floral in acrylic on page 44 and I like the effect of using different media in my journal. Corpus has some great seafood restaurants and I like to cut and paste when I don't have a lot of time to record where and what I ate.
At Tarleton over the weekend someone asked me how I remembered we had Cheese Whiz and Ginger Ale in the dorm for a party and the reason is I took a photo and then wrote below it in my scrapbook.
I don't need a reminder to recall how we couldn't wear pants or jeans on campus and rolling up the pants legs under a long coat to get out of the dorm and the watchful eye of our dorm mother. But after these nostalgic weekends, my wish is that I'd recorded more as memory dulls and that is why we always welcome back old alumni, maybe they'll bring some fresh stories we haven't repeated several times.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Floral Workshop ~ Burridge ~ Corpus Christi

Floral Acrylic on 20" x 16" gallery wrapped canvas by Nancy
painted in the Robert Burridge Floral Workshop in Corpus Christi (with some collage elements)

I've been in "Bob Land" for the past 5 days in an acrylic painting workshop in Corpus. This was my fifth 5 day workshop with Bob and I'm signed up for my sixth in Dallas in 2009. He is booked for the next 3 years and lucky you if you're signed up and if you aren't, get on the waiting list today. His workshops are all about loosening up and having fun. On the first day he reassures each student it will be a safe place to paint like you've always wanted to paint and take risks. He is BIG on risk taking. He tells us it's all been done before but not by you. It's your life and experiences and paint from that. Bob likes to paint flat and use lots of water on 140 lb. paper covered with gesso. He also paints on canvas but with his workshop travels the paper is easier to transport. Bob's experience in the design field has led to redesigning his brushes with wider, longer handles and we'll hear more about this later.
Warm-ups on smaller sizes (5" x 7" or 6" x 9") start each morning and helps with the loosening up process. Light, color, composition, and varnish are all discussed in details and handouts. Lots of demos (short and long) help us to learn by watching him paint. He's invented his own color wheel using the Holbein Acryla colors he enjoys using. He stresses his way is not the only way but one way. He is a high energy person and his workshops reflect that and one student voiced our opinion when she said "We're slow but we're willing" and that's the necessary ingredient for the students - be willing to show up and take risks and have a good attitude. He'll teach you all you can absorb and this is the reason for my fifth as I can't absorb and process all the information at once, even with lots of note taking and photos. It's not about him but about him teaching and helping us. Take your value scale and put grumpy on one end and hyper happy on the other and he's at the H H end. In Corpus the students produced some great work because we were constantly reminded to take risks, stop and breathe, and have fun and we were constantly inspired by his love of painting and enthusiasm. When he's not teaching workshops he paints in his country barn studio along the beaches of San Luis Obispo County. If you can't get to a workshop his web site offers a lot of information with pdf files to open and he has a monthly newsletter you would enjoy. Go to http://robertburridge.com and click on the purple ArtsyFartsy logo and register.



Below is a slide show of some of the images from the workshop.