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.

Tarleton Homecoming Weekend

The Homecoming Weekend at Tarleton State University, Stephenville, TX., could not have been any better. The weather was perfect at around 70 with little wind, and the sun was shining – all a great setting for old friends and classmates to meet. The schedule was full with a Golden Reunion Reception of classes of the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and 60’s in the Dining Hall on Friday evening. Later we met at a motel conference room to continue with the visit and Purple book (annual) looking. Saturday was the Parade and special recognition luncheon of the 1957 50th Year Reunion Luncheon with 1956-1958 invited. Some of those interested went to the football game in the afternoon and then approximately 22 met at Jake and Dorothy’s Café, still serving chicken fried steaks like we had in 1954.
We heard exciting news about the future home for Tarleton alumni, located across the women’s residence halls and will include the Alumni House, Campus Corner and meeting hall. The Alumni House was open for us to visit before the parade. It was built in 1915 for one of John Tarleton’s College presidents. Later the nostalgic Campus Corner will be open and have a working soda fountain and jukebox. This complex will be about a $2.0 million program and will serve alumni of today and for generations to come. This addition is a needed place to meet and have a cup of coffee with a stack of Grassburrs (the college annual) to look through. I was editor of the 1956 Grassburr and got to visit with the journalism teacher, now Dr. Chilton. I’m so glad I was a part of recording some of those precious memories. One of my dear friends, Peggy, was recruited to be on the annual staff and meetings were on Monday night, the same night as the dances at the rec hall across the street. She is still complaining about that one. She had some very cute clothes so we designed and had her dress to depict in each month’s season division page in the annual. I wished we’d used more captions and I wish more than ever I’d been a journal keeper at that time – mainly to bring some new stories back to homecoming each year.
Much of homecoming success goes to Paul Koonsman ’67, Alumni Relations Director and this year he had his wife, Karen, and the rest of the family involved.
I owe my Tarleton family membership to my Mother (and Father who paid) who deposited me on their doorstep and said “Major in Home Economics”. I was interested in De Leon and De Leon boys and not future oriented, but I became involved with Tarleton’s 2 year junior college’s colorful traditions and now our family is a first-class university. Classmates return each year as there is a bond that has sealed us together in traditions of Oscar P, Plowboys, drum beating, bonfires, balls, dances on the slab, and Cadet Corp trips and most of all – friendly Texas students (ok, a few were out of state). Enrollment now tops 9,000. One of the guys quipped when a float loaded with girls passed by during the parade “I think there are more girls on the back of that truck than went to school here when I did”. The boy/girl ratio was in favor of the girls, for sure.
We owe a big debt of gratitude to that wealthy rancher who had the foresight to begin a college in rural Erath County. TSU is building a new dining room that should be open in January ’08. The one I ate in was built in 1928 and a lot of romances began there and a lot of “sugar ants” were stomped around the tables as newly dating couples began to meet for lunch or dinner and a “fish” would be told to “Button-up” or yell out their names to the likes of “I don’t know but I’ve been told….”. If you haven’t been to a Tarleton Homecoming in a while or ever, make plans to join us in 2008 and bring some new stories.
See the slide show below to see some of the photos taken during the weekend.
Other blogs where I post:
· http://artistfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/
· http://canvasbycanvas.blogspot.com/
· http://myspace.com/nancystandlee
· TO VIEW MORE PAINTINGS OR PURCHASE: Go to Paypal on http://nancystandlee.blogspot.com/
· Eat Well ~ Paint Your Food ~ Laugh Often