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.

ANNOUNCING ...Our New Mini Series CUPCAKES

CUPCAKE CELEBRITIES

Cupcake Love by Nancy Standlee

6" x 6" Acrylic on canvas Gallery wrapped canvas 7/8" profile

For purchase go to http://canvasbycanvas.com/ Custom frames are available in single, double, triple or quadruple and can be viewed along with the shoes on our website. Canvas by Canvas

We hope you love these little gems as much as we have loved creating them. All things small and wonderful. These are our newest paintings. We look forward to your responses. When our collaborative painting group began talking about the cupcake series it generated hundreds of emails over night. One CBCer woke up to 150 new emails after thinking the topic had waned and went to bed. She wrote to me “You sure talk slow but type fast.” Others not involved in blogging – YET-- tend to call the rest “Bloggernuts” and I may have to agree. But we’re just “baby bloggers” excited about cupcakes and blogging. I did a “cupcake” blog search on Technorati and oh, well, HELLO! So I need to add a disclaimer here. “No, we’re not cupcakes. We’re painting cupcakes.” Most of us have a history with cupcakes. I don’t think I remember my Mom making them but she did make her share of 3 layer chocolate cakes from scratch: however, I’ve made my share for school parties, but none as cute as our fancy little acrylic cupcake numbers. I found a delightful article in the San Francisco Chronicle by Amanda Gold, called Cupcake Cravings: These irresistible confections bring out the kid in all of us. For a great cupcake blog try Chockylit Cupcake Bakeshop. Now Johnny Cupcakes is another story. Here is part of it about how he started a very successful t-shirt design company
“I began poking fun at pop culture by replacing familiar icons with cupcakes! A Statue of Liberty holding a cupcake instead of a torch, a jet plane dropping cupcakes instead of bombs..and at the time the skull and crossbones was all over the place, so I thought it would be funny to replace the skull with a cupcake. That t-shirt seemed to be the most bold, memorable and admirable t-shirtout of the random shirts I continued releasing.”

So everyone seems to have a cupcake connection. Our cupcakes paintings are whimsical plus a bit of nostalgia, and trendy and we hope you like them. We’ve had a ton of fun painting them.