Calf Painting ~ Cattle ~ Nancy Standlee Art Blog

Texas Calf
11 x 14 Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas, 1 3/8 depth

My calf/cow knowledge would fit in a thimble and the closest I get to cattle is probably at the State Fair of Texas.
In my earlier days, I have observed my daddy milking and remember asking him if I could try but zilch on the milk.
I've seen a lot of cattle and horses on the daily painting sites and Canvas by Canvas had painted some longhorns so this is my attempt (My square in the CBC longhorn painting was the bottom left square (just grass and the signature) You can't draw the center square every time). My other longhorn painting was given as a Christmas gift and I have one that has been repainted several times and is not ready for it's debut yet. I'm still cattle challenged and I still prefer my associated to be limited by canvas and paints.
If you like jokes, here is one from MGR of Chaos about a Montana cowboy and some cows and calves.

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

Gloria ~ Glorious Days with Gloria ~ Duck, NC ~ Nancy Standlee Art Blog

$25
5" x 7" Acrylic on canvas board
This small portrait is smaller than I usually paint and the colors are not as vivid but I love to try my hand at portraits and plan to do others. I named the painting Gloria, but it really reminds me a little of Helen Hunt and it doesn't look like Gloria. Gloria is the name chosen because several of the CBC group (but before it was organized) traveled to the Outer Banks, North Carolina to take a workshop with a long ago Virginia friend, Gloria Coker. She paints like I’d like to with very bright colors and in an impressionist style. We flew into Norfolk, Virginia. She has a beach house in Duck named the “Sketch Pad” and near the ocean but she was such an enthusiastic teacher and taskmaster we spent little time on the beach. Her forte was individual attention and getting us to find “our style” while working at our own level. I had met Gloria years ago (think 70's) while we were artist wantabe’s in Hampton, Va. She was already painting and selling fabulous watercolors and I have an early Gloria painting of her cats. I was very involved with batik and as I remember we probably traded a batik and a painting.

One distracting little activity we were prone to do during our photo ops were to display friends (who were absent) photos on sticks to include them in the activities. Gloria would be giving a demo and a head on a stick would appear behind the easel so the missing person would still be in the photo. Gloria indulged our little whims. This photo was taken at the airport before the heads were on a stick.

Gloria is in the process of developing a blog sometime during the summer. It will be a welcome bookmark and she says she will contribute a painting and recipe to our Artists Food Network.
I should have named the painting, “Glorious Days with Gloria” to remind us of those early mornings sitting on the covered deck drinking our coffee and planning and looking forward to a day of instruction and painting. Gloria, please let us know when your blog's grand opening will be.

Daffodil Painting Series #4 of 4 ~ Art Groups DFW

$40.00 each

Daffodil Series #4 of 4

Weekend Sale 2 Daffodil series $60.00 or 4 Daffodil Series 1-4 for $100.00

5” x 7” watercolor with light beige mat

How do you get visitors to your web site or blog site? There are many opinions to that question. This week I invited everyone in my address book and that gives you pause. You’re afraid that Yahoo will think you’re a spammer or your friends will not appreciate you filling up their inbox. Fortunately I’ve had some positive response and thanks to you who have subscribed. One email came from Sharon Giles from the Art Groups DFW and she asked me to contribute an article on blogging and my art blog. You can read the article here.

The web site is a hub for the DFW area artists and those living in the North Texas area. It is The Place to discover what is happening in the art scene in the metroplex and surrounding area.
It is devoted to news of art events hosted by nonprofit visual art groups as well as news about their member artists. Artists can find out about exhibits, meetings, art instruction, and opportunities. You may find a exhibit you would like to visit over the weekend.

Or take a cruise over to Canvas by Canvas.com and see our mini paintings of high heels and cupcakes. We have reduced the prices to make them affordable for gifts - maybe an early Christmas present. It is always a difficult process to find the correct selling price for a painting. We have reached the conclusion that these were priced more than some competitive paintings. Our goal is to sell so we can keep painting. Your comments on this would be appreciated. Since lowering the price to $40.00 earlier today, one has been sold so that tells us something.

I hope you have an enjoyable weekend. I wish on these little holidays you take the right exit and you travel without any warning lights appearing on your dashboard.

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

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Daffodil Painting ~ Starry Night ~ Lorelle VanFossen

$40.00
Daffodil Series #3 of 4

5”x7” watercolor with a light beige mat to fit 8”x10” frame

What is your favorite Van Gogh painting? Yesterdays post introduced 2 daffodil paintings and you visited YouTube to hear that wonderful tribute in song to Vincent Van Gogh and Starry, Starry Night and to see the slide show of some of Van Gogh's paintings. Starry Night is special to me because it was my oldest son’s favorite painting when Van Gogh’s paintings were introduced into the school art curriculum in his elementary school days.

For more information on Starry Night go to the Van Gogh Gallery

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh has risen to the peak of artistic achievements. Although Van Gogh sold only one painting in his life, the aftermath of his work is enormous. Starry Night is one of the most well known images in modern culture as well as being one of the most replicated and sought after prints. From Don McLean's song 'Starry, Starry Night' (Based on the Painting), to the endless number of merchandise products sporting this image, it is nearly impossible to shy away from this amazing painting. (read more at the Gallery)

The Official Don McLean Website..

For the Bloggers:

Because I’m a “newbie” blogger, belong to a group of collaborative artists, Canvas by Canvas, and some have joined me in the Blogosphere, I give a hint or tip in my blogs when I find something of note – especially something about blogging. This morning C/NET News on my Yahoo page, staff writer Elinor Mills wrote an article “Please Don’t Steal This Web Content” about Lorelle VanFossen and her popular blog on blogging and her views on copyright laws. (Artists are always thinking about copyright laws such as whose photograph is that? Did you take it? Who took it? On and on…) This morning I learned about software bots that copy thousands of blog posts and republish on sites using ads to generate $$$. These sites are know as new word --“scraper sites”. The article gives some ways VanFossen gets around this practice.

At this stage of my blogging life, I like to read blogs about blogging. Do I hear a suppressed yawn out there? Ok, so finding an unused steno pad or a new yellow lined tablet at my house makes me ecstatic. To find my long lost stapler in a pile of papers makes me do the happy dance. (My daughter mentioned last weekend she hoped no one struck a match around here.) So back to BAB (blogs about blogging) and I plan to tag Lorelle’s site on Del.icio.us ( I Love Del.icio.us) . Fellow CBC painters, Lorelle uses WordPress and we use Blogger but I’m sure we can benefit when we check out some hints on her BAB. Painting, blogging, and music makes me do another happy dance.

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

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Kitty Wompus ~ Uncertain, TX ~ Wompus Kitty

$65.00
11" x 15" watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper

This was painted from a cat photo I'd taken at the Upstairs Gallery, Arlington, info@upstairsartgallery.com. where some of us meet to paint at J. T.'s and for while I called the painting J.T.'s cat. Several cats rule at the TUG and I don't know their true cat names or if they even have a name, but they pretty much take over the workshop area while we are there, coming and going as they please and ignoring us completely.
Now about that title. There are many word search results on Kitty Wompus. I found kitty-wumpus, catty-wompus, catty wampus,and catawampus (and this may be the one as it's a variant of mountain lion. It has come to mean askew or crooked and first appeared in print in 1843. (What about antigogglin'? or is this even how to spell it?) Anyway it brought to mind how my Daddy used the word with a slight inversion. If he ever said, "She's an old Wompus Kitty", we knew that was not good and might call into question a female's character.

The wild colors came about from taking my second workshop with Ken Hosmer and it was held at the Mossy Brake Gallery in Uncertain, Texas . Several of us rented cabins in the area and spent an enjoyable week painting on the Caddo Lake. I went to my first Hosmer workshop in Oklahoma by myself. I took his videos and my portable tv/vcr combination and ensconced myself in a local motel and painted by day and watched his videos some evenings. I'd found his web site first and loved his use of color and wanted to see him paint and take a workshop.That's usually my modus operandi when I discover a favorite painter. On the Ken Hosmer website he gives a watercolor demonstration of painting a calico cat.

After some consideration, I felt like with the wild Hosmer influenced colors my kitty could be a Kitty Wompus or a Wompus Kitty, just take your pick.

More cat humor can be found at I Can Has Cheezburger.com.

Other blogs where I post:

http://artistfoodnetwork.blogspot.com

http://canvasbycanvas.blogspot.com

http://marketplace-daily-art.blogspot.com

TO PURCHASE PAINTINGS: Go to Paypal on

NANCY STANDLEE ART BLOG

Eat Well ~ Paint Your Food ~ Laugh Often

Mango ~ Mango Salsa ~ Calorie-Count ~ Calorie Talk

$100 will be in the FWCAC during December.
9" x 11" can be cropped to an 8 x 10 to fit a standard frame
unmatted and unframed
Watercolor on 140 CP watercolor paper

(This was posted today on Artist Food Network)

I met my first mango in Barbados in the 80's and I've been in love ever since. Today's recipe will feature the mango in the BEST salsa ever. It is delish on a piece of grilled salmon or if you can take the calories, some tortilla chips.. I have a great recipe for salmon to post later and both foods are lower in calories. A cup of mango has about 100 calories plus 3 gms. of fiber, but you will not be able to prepare only one without some bites so buy 2 or 3 and I will usually add an extra one to the salsa recipe. Eat one..Add two.

Mango, Tomato and Avocado Salsa

1 or 2 mangoes, peeled and diced

1 avocado, peeled and diced

4 medium tomatoes, diced

1 fresh jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced (canned is ok)

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon salt

2 Tablespoons fresh lime juice

3 Tablespoons olive oil

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and refrigerate for about 30 minutes before serving or just go ahead and have a bowl of it now.

Why all this calorie talk today? The CBC girls were dining at a local barbecue hangout when we observed so many overweight people and then looked at ourselves and decided this was the summer to take action. Some of us are taking more action than others but since the committed ones threw $50 in a pool, weight control has become a little more interesting. We will know the outcome of our weight wars in September and I think I'm in a losing battle so I joined Calorie-Count this morning and set up my profile. There seems to be good support here and the means to enter a favorite recipe to give the nutritional count. I have added their tool bar and it is so convenient to add foods eaten and then the "Eat Meter" will register the day's food intake.

Other blogs where I post:
http://artistfoodnetwork.blogspot.com
http://canvasbycanvas.blogspot.com
http://marketplace-daily-art.blogspot.com

TO PURCHASE PAINTINGS: Go to Paypal at:
Nancy Standlee Art Blog

Eat Well ~ Paint Your Food ~ Laugh Often

Calypso Series Slide Show 1-10 Images

Tomato Soup ~ La Madeleine's Tomato Basil Soup ~ Daily Recipes ~ Daily Painting

$60.00
6 x 8 Acrylic collage on canvas board
(This was originally posted on the Artist Food Network and is repeated here.)
Bonjour! Our CBC group met at Karen's for a painting weekend. I provided this soup that was a big hit and Cindy Campbell made some delicious cheese sandwiches to accompany the soup. This was in 2006 and the weather was cool and we photographed our food. Now Karen has recently moved back to town. We will all miss our visits to the country. She had a large home in the country with a special room with what I called the "Snow White Room" because it had all these beds lined up dormitory style for us to sleep in and didn't mind when we all set up to paint in her living room.
But if we need a quick Tomato Basil Soup we head to La Mad's in Arlington where we can enjoy great conversation and fresh, delicious food. This restaurant opened in Dallas in 1982 and is another Texas tradition and serves classic French country fare. Now there are more than 60 locations across the U.S.
La Madeleine's Tomato Basil Soup
Serves 8
4 cups (8-10) tomatoes, peeled, cored and chopped, or 4 cups canned whole tomatoes, crushed
4 cups tomato juice or part tomato juice and part vegetable or chicken stock
12 to 14 washed fresh basil leaves
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 lb. sweet unsalted butter
salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper
Combine tomatoes, tomato juice or tomato juice mixture in saucepan. Simmer 30 minutes. Puree, along with the basil leaves, in small batches, in blender or food processor.
Return to saucepan and add cream, butter and pepper and salt and while stirring, over low heat. Garnish with basil leaves and serve with your favorite bread.
Nutritional analysis per serving from the 1995 Star-Telegram: 248 calories, 23 grams fat, 72 milligrams cholesterol, 457 milligrams sodium, 83 % of calories from fat.
If you like recipes, you'll like All Recipes. http://allrecipes.com/ I found this similar Tomato Basil Soup here and rest assured there are not many dishes out there you can't find a recipe for. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Rich-and-Creamy-Tomato-Basil-Soup/Detail.aspx and be assured if it's gotten 263 reviews and 4 1/2 stars it's a good recipe. But note it gives 1/2 cup of butter hence - more rich and creamy! Hint for printing: Go to advanced options and remove advertisements and add nutritional information.
And I hate it, hate it when someone thinks their recipe is original and won't share it. In my early wifehood (just arthood at present) a guest at a large dinner party served her tomato pudding and amidst the raves said "Oh, I don't give out this as it's an old family recipe that just stays in the family". #$%&#!!. It took me days but I found one similar enough. So much for the only one of a kind. This is just my feelings and I'm sure it's not shared by all, but I feel highly complimented if someone says, "Can you give me your recipe?". "Well, yes Ma'am, I sure can." In fact CBC feels so strongly about sharing, we're asking all our artist friends to share their recipe and their favorite painting so if you like food and art please send your friends an email telling them about us and what we're up to.
Paint Your Food, Eat Well, and Laugh Often!
Other blogs where I post: http://artistfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/ http://canvasbycanvas.blogspot.com/ http://marketplace-daily-art.blogspot.com/ TO PURCHASE PAINTINGS: Go to Paypal on http://nancystandlee.blogspot.com/

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Calypso Dreams Series #9 of 10 ~ Daily Acrylic Painting

7.5" x 5.5" image
Acrylic on 140 lb. watercolor paper
The Calypso series #9

These other worldly figures look as if they were off in their separate dream world of colorful surroundings. One more to go in this series and then I will post all of them in a slide show so you can see them all together. I hope you have enjoyed these impressionist figurative small paintings.

Other blogs where I post:
http://artistfoodnetwork.blogspot.com
http://canvasbycanvas.blogspot.com
http://marketplace-daily-art.blogspot.com

TO PURCHASE PAINTINGS: Go to Paypal on the sidebar under How to Purchase a Painting: http://nancystandlee.blogspot.com

Lemons ~ Luby's ~ Lemon Pie

Lemons by Nancy Standlee
$60.00
Acrylic Collage on Canvas Board 6" x 8"
Something NEW...The Artist Food Network... a new blog for artists to share their recipes and their food paintings. You'll see I included a recipe with this painting and that will be the theme of our blog launched over the weekend. If you're an artist with a great recipe and a great painting of an ingredient of the recipe, or recipe related please check out our blog or send it to Artistrecipes@gmail.com and share it with us. You can read more about it on the blog site and you can subscribe to it by email. We hope you like the new blog and hope to see you there. This is a copy of my post that appeared on the site today.

Several of us painted today and when lunch came Cindy Yandell, Barbara Hackney, and I took off to Luby's. Luby's is a Texas tradition and their motto is "Tastes Like Texas, Feels Like Home." Texas families have been going to Luby's since 1947 and their headquarters are in Houston. There are always requests in the recipe section of the Fort Worth Star Telegram for a Luby speciality. That's where this yellowed copy of Luby's Lemon Icebox Pie came from. I thought it would complement my lemon collage painting. I love collage and attaching bits and pieces to my paintings.
I noticed that in this old 1995 copy the recipe called for raw eggs before it was recommended to be cautious in using them for people with a weakened defense system. When growing up the only way to make homemade ice cream was to use raw eggs and nothing beat a bowl of fresh peach or banana ice cream. There are many recipes to be found for a lemon ice box pie and they all will probably follow this one pretty close but now we see a short baking time. Make it if your hips can stand it.
LEMON ICEBOX PIE
1 can (14 oz. sweetened condensed Milk (Eagle Brand)
3 large eggs, separated
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (3 or 4 lemons) No bottled lemon juice!
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1/4 cup sugar
One 9" graham cracker crust
1. Heat oven to 350 F.
2. Combine milk, egg yolks, lemon juice and lemon peel. Mix until blended. Pour crust and bake for 5 minutes.
3. Beat egg whites until almost stiff and add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, while beating until the whites hold a peak. Spread over the filling to edge of the crust.
4. Bake 12 to 15 minutes at 350 until the meringue is lightly browned. Refrigerate until served.

PS: Interesting find. I have the Luby's 50th Anniversary Recipe Collection cookbook and since I'm an Amazon affiliate I thought I'd check if they had this title in used books. They do. Click on my Amazon link "No image available" and you will soon be looking for the nearest garage sales for this loved cookbook. No I won't sell you mine. I couldn't live without the recipe for Date Nut Muffins.

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?

CALYPSO JUDGE Series #5 of 10 More BLOG and PING

7.5" x 5.5" image
Acrylic on 140 lb. watercolor paper
The Calypso series #5

This figure reminds me of a judge. What do you see? I have the bright colors, and lots of splatter, and the addition of the black and white squares suggests a checkerboard. It is dramatic when you have your darkest dark up against the lightest light in a painting and it will tend to draw the eye to this area. I don’t want an exact likeness but just an impression that does not bore.
In yesterday’s post, I reported on a ping site. Today I have another site to add to our arsenal and instructions on how to put it on your blog so as to ping several blog directories to possibly cause some indirect traffic to appear at your blog site. My painting buddies at Canvas by Canvas are calling us "Nancy and the Bloggernuts" and these instructions are directed more at the Bloggernuts than anyone else.
Autopinger is a free and convenient service for all bloggers. Just set it and forget it. It relays your blog updates to blog search engines every 30 minutes or you can add a button and ping after you update. Disclaimer! I’ve been blogging about 2 weeks now (a baby blogger trying to find my way in the blogosphere). Please read your directions for your Ping Me button as given on http://autopinger.com/ as the ones given below are only suggestions.

Gadzooks! Batman!...go for it.
Go to: http://autopinger.com/

Register- Sign up is free
You will receive an email notification, follow
instructions
Sign up by clicking
Go to My Account
Add new blog
Type in the url of your blog - ADD
Set ping services (on the left)
All are set automatically
Get the: Quick Ping Button
Copy the html
code generated (scroll down, left click inside the box, control C to copy
(Here I paste it in a Word document in case for some strange reason I lose
it?) Paranoia?
At Blogger Template, add a page, HTML, and paste in the code
(I had a box at the bottom of my page that I’d put in a stat counter (the long
skinny one) So as not to add another box on my page, I used the stat counter box
and pressed enter several times to put some space between the html code and
added the Ping info into the same box.)
Paste into the Blogger template
(Here grab you a glass of iced tea and bring it back to your computer...Be
careful of spills! or some Sweet tea, sometimes known as Southern Table Wine.
View and Ping the PING ME button...Fun! and Watch what
happens in the pop up window…Drink you iced tea and WAIT and WATCH as your site is pinged to death. Autoping will do this automatically every 30 minutes.

(I can’t believe computers all over the world are being pinged every 30 minutes but then I don’t understand electricity either or even how my coffee pot works!) OR and this is the fun part you can press your Ping Me button when you have an update. BLOG and PING!! Scroll all the way down to the bottom of my page and you can see my Ping Me button and yours should look just the same. I hope so. Happy Pinging!

SOLD ~ Women Only Red Lipstick by Nancy Standlee

Women Only Red Lipstick
6” x 8” Acrylic on Canvas Panel

Red Lipstick. On my AT&T/Yahoo homepage this headline and video caught my eye. Since I didn’t think there were very many things left just “For Women” I did a Google search….Wrong! There were millions of hits. I was interested in Pommygranate’s blog that reported this "Women-Only Beach" item. I like the idea of lipstick still being in the female domain. It’s one of my earliest memories of femininity. Your mom making sure your first tube was the palest of pinks and hiding out in the school bathroom to try on the newest shade from a friend. One friend, Shirley, in high school, always wore Revlon’s “Orchids to You” and when she said the name, I always thought she said “Orchid Stew”. Why do I still remember that? I did a Google search on “Orchids to You” and came up with a delightful story, “Harrell: At the beauty parlor”, posted in 2003 in the Carolina Morning News about her experience with “Orchids to You” nail polish and another beauty product, the Frankenstein machine for perms (I’ve had one of those also). Now it seems the newer lipstick names are “Wild Orchid” and “Orchid Beach”. Do you wear “Orchid Beach” lipstick at the women only beach? Whatever the color, it’s better than crushing carmine beetles like Cleopatra as mentioned in Wikipedia. I like Red and red lipstick for women only.

Sold ~ Fish City Grill Arlington by Nancy Standlee

SOLD
7.5” x 11”
Pen and Ink on Fabriano 140 cold press watercolor paper

Some friends, (CC, Cindy, and Barbara) and I decided to eat lunch at Fish City Grill in our newest shopping center, the Arlington Highlands Town Center, at Matlock and I 20. I’ve eaten at some of the Dallas sites and have been eagerly awaiting their grand opening in Arlington. Their motto “Friendly Folks. Serious Seafood” certainly was true yesterday. Maddie was our gracious waitress and told us “We were her best table today”. What a nice compliment for customers to hear. Maybe we were her first table for the day? We didn’t want to leave. The food and companionship were a great combination. Too soon we had to be off to DeSoto to hang our Canvas by Canvas exhibit. The invitation and map is at the very bottom of our home page.
Pen and ink is a favorite medium to use in my journals. You can sketch and then come back later to color the image or as in the case yesterday, take a photo, and then sketch it another day. If you are interested in sketchbook journaling may I suggest these books:

• How to Make a Journal of Your Life by Dan Price
  Moonlight Chronicles by Dan Price
  The Creative License by Danny Gregory
  Everyday Matters by Danny Gregory
  Art Escapes by Dory Kanter
• If you are interested in any of these books, click on the Amazon icon and do a search for more descriptions.
  Danny Gregory has a large Yahoo group that has 2549 members.
  
• SOLD to Fish City Grill
  

Red CROCS by Nancy Standlee

$70.00
6" x 8"
Acrylic on artist canvas panel

Red Crocs
I mentioned in a post of my recent experience at Tampa General. Instructions stated to wear something loose and comfortable for admitting. Crocs fit that description and I needed a red something for flash since I couldn’t have my turquoise jewelry or makeup. Soon after I entered their covered pavilion walkway, I was stripped and told to wear their duds consisting of a back tied skimpy gown and blue paper shoes. I would always choose cute red plastic over blue paper in footwear. My comfy clothes were deposited in a large white plastic tote along with my Crocs. I thought the medical profession liked Crocs. (The Crocs company doesn’t call it plastic but a material called Croslite.)
Are my red Crocs the ultimate shoe faux pas – worse than wearing white shoes after September 1? At my age I really don’t need to fall and the Crocs are steadying forces, not unlike my last summer sandals, MBT. I became a little concerned when I was given a dvd explaining how to walk in them after I wrote the check. I thought I had walking down pretty pat. When reaching senior years your kids sometimes take away your car keys, but mine have been threatening to take away my MBTs because of the rocking motion when I come to a stop. Forward is ok. So far they haven’t threatened to take away the red Crocs and I really do feel like a shoe fashionista when wearing them. What artist would not like the wonderful palette of colors in fuchsia, green, purple, yellow and good old red.
The painting style is different today, more whimsical, and smaller in size, fun to paint. I’m not ready to pin down my “style”. After retiring I thought a few lessons would become a nice little leisure activity but it has become a way of life.
May the tread on your Crocs never wear down.

Golden Days

15” x 11”
unframed, no mat - acrylic on watercolor paper
Golden Days is a rose’s name but I thought about summer’s golden days when beautiful flowers are in bloom. I plan to paint some smaller pieces soon of various subjects. I’ve watched Daily Painters Art – a group of 115 artists who do ‘one-a-day’ paintings. Wow! And these are usually smaller paintings. Yesterday I received an email from another daily painter, Duane Keiser, introducing his 2nd blog. He’s beginning an experiment of painting an oddment, a small 3”x 2” painting, and he will sell it for $125, painted from objects people send him – objects that would fit in the palm of your hand. Immediately I grabbed an old WAMU check box and began looking for small objects to send. I decided on ½ pair of a Monarch butterfly wings, found in the yard and I have saved it for years, an out of fashion covered button – the ones we wore covering up perfectly good buttons but they matched our skirts. Maybe that was just a school teacher thing. Also, I sent a sewing machine bobbin and an old wooden spool of thread that had 15 cents printed on one end and that is old. I found the thimble that was supposed to be included this morning on the kitchen table. The package went out yesterday. I’ll let you know if he chooses any of my items. At one time I collected all things sewing but now it's art, pens, and pencils. I want to do some small paintings – larger than 3” x 2” but smaller than this Golden Days 15” x 11”. Maybe I’ll call them my “Little Jewels”. How does that sound? Maybe use some 6” x 8” canvas panels.