Skip Lawrence Workshop ~ Day 4, Thursday ~ Watercolor by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Watercolor, mixed media on 140 lb watercolor paper
22" x 30"

Wow, did this sheet of paper look big and it looked so much larger than the Skip Lawrence demo I carried the paper on the support up to the front and measured to make sure Skip hadn't been painting on a half sheet. I was getting ready for the day's assignment about working from top to bottom or bottom to the top.. I never did get the terminology down correct. It was all about layers. After we saw a slide show about looking at figures and how different artists paint figures and that was a great slide show but Skip has a rule. Only he gets to narrate..OR he loses his train of thought. By now, by the fourth day the group acted like and felt like "friends" and we were always wanting to interrupt. I hope that was all and not just "me". I was using 140 lb. watercolor paper and he says the "professionals" use 300 lb. with a slight chuckle so it was necessary for me to anchor down the paper with his favorite Ace hardware tape. I'll discuss the steps in the next photos and you can click on them to enlarge.


I sketched a figure in pencil and charcoal. I don't think Skip used charcoal. In fact a lot of times I don't think he did much sketching. Wet the paper where the figure was. I found this out later as I wet a lot of my paper but later found out, he wet the area where the figure was to be painted.

Begin putting on your layers of color and work from transparent to opaque, something like a yellow, then a permanent rose and then a blue and begin to use less water. The paper will only hold so much water. You can tell it was still wet when I took the photo. Add some blue next.
Add some blues and anything else you fancy and start finding and adding some shapes, always searching for things that's yours and how to make the work your own. Somewhere about now you need to take a 2 hour break while some of this dries or you will get mud. Now you can add the opaques or add white paint to watercolor. My deal is I like to paint red haired women, can't stay out of my stamps and I like the women with a little attitude with a hint of a wing shape. I used some Caran d'Ache in the hair and for other accents. Skip said she looked like she had a tattoo. That's OK because I see a lot of tattoos at my family gatherings.

Blick Art Materials:
You rock, Blick Art Materials. I will be giving a program in Graham, TX. at the end of the month on art journaling and I asked for a donation to give to the attendees. When I arrived home Friday here was a big box filled with goody bags containing a Blick sale flyer, a $5 gift coupon and a Blick paintbrush. Thanks Jen McCutcheon and Dick Blick for the very generous donation. Blick has the Aquabee Super Deluxe Sketchbook that I like to use for journal keeping as it has 93 pound paper pages.

Please visit my web site and comment on my blog:

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

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

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

ARLINGTON TEXAS ~ ARTIST NANCY STANDLEE ~ DAILY PAINTER ~
CONTEMPORARY ~ WATERCOLOR ~ ACRYLIC ~ COLLAGE ~ GOUACHE
ABSTRACT ~ EXPRESSIONIST ~ ART FOR SALE ~ FIGURATIVE ~ MIXED MEDIA ~ ALTERED BOOKS

Contact NancyStandlee@sbcglobal.net

Skip Lawrence Workshop ~ Day 3, Wednesday ~ Watercolor by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Figure Watercolor 21" x 14
(some stamping, and Caran d'Ache)

Small Watercolor approx. 6" x 9" from Monday's starts

The Skip Lawrence workshop: Our days begin with a slide show discussing and showing examples of what our goal is for the day and for me, this is a good way to work. He talks about famous paintings and then Skip will demo and then we usually get some painting in before lunch and paint until about 2:30 and then we all benefit and enjoy a lengthy critique. Wednesday was all about the treatment of edges in designing a painting and in the top painting I tried to get a good variety of edges. It is really hard not to draw and fill in the blanks coloring book style. And yes, we want hard, soft and a variation of edges and then anything goes to get some interest such as scratch, splatter, smudging to give those edges some gradation and to travel from one shape to another in the process of connecting things. He kept telling us change colors but keep the same value. Things he has repeated are "You can't paint what it looks like but paint what it feels like" and "we separate things we should be connecting."
On the smaller painting above I took one of the Monday starts and painted and added some watercolor crayon to it. It's nice to have these extra starts to work on while others dry or you're wondering what the heck do I do now.
Wednesday was a long day for Skip as after class we had our SWS meeting and he gave a demo to a packed house. Stephen Quiller was there and some from his class at the Artists' Showplace.
I'll post slides of some of Skip's work later in the week. We are all enjoying the workshop and our workshop chairman, Pattie Bowler, has been taking care of all the details and doing a great job of taking care of us. She will be our next SWS president. Students are pushing their art supplies aside and eating at their work space or painting and eating and afraid to leave our upstairs cocoon ..afraid we'll miss something.

Please visit my web site and comment on my blog:

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

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

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

ARLINGTON TEXAS ~ ARTIST NANCY STANDLEE ~ DAILY PAINTER ~
CONTEMPORARY ~ WATERCOLOR ~ ACRYLIC ~ COLLAGE ~ GOUACHE
ABSTRACT ~ EXPRESSIONIST ~ ART FOR SALE ~ FIGURATIVE ~ MIXED MEDIA ~ ALTERED BOOKS

Contact NancyStandlee@sbcglobal.net

Skip Lawrence Workshop ~ Day 2, Tuesday ~ Watercolor by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Watercolor approx. 12" x 10


Watercolor Approximately 21" x 14"

Today it was about "A Lot and a Little" and Balance. Skip Lawrence presented a slide show giving examples of famous paintings to show a simple approach to design and in a short, short summary for example if you have a lot of busy, put in a little calm or if you have lots of large shapes make sure to add a few small shapes.
We could paint whatever we wanted but apply some of the ideas he presented in the demo and lecture with the admonition "Don't do what you always do, try something else." Today I began adding some pure clean colors and no opaque but I could use black and white as pure colors then have the rest of the painting in neutrals. I must admit these two looked a little blah and I did add a little color enhancement in Photoshop Elements.
In the critique at the end of the day, Skip liked the top painting better and one of the reasons the bottom one was the flowers at the neck looked too realistic and he wanted the figure to go into the background more.
What really happened on the top one was the result of a very sad portrait and I didn't care what happened to it and just started painting some figures and making marks. On the bottom one I began on a clean white sheet of paper with some drawing in pencil and charcoal and it was more labored. Maybe I need to start painting over old paintings? Some in the class are using acrylics. I know one thing for my own work, after using acrylics for awhile....I really like acrylics and I'm fighting the watercolor trying to get them to act like acrylics. Skip uses lots of watercolor pigment with little water. I finally brought in some oil painting bristle brushes today and I imagined my little watercolors were screaming without their little soft sables. Skip did say that for his larger work he does use acrylics but he can paint a full sheet figure with watercolor and it can make it do tricks like an acrylic. I can't. I think I may remove that "yellow hand/arm" tomorrow in the lower painting. It's definitely a bother to me.
Watch for a slide show later in the week of Skip's work and demos.

Please visit my web site and comment on my blog:

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

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

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

ARLINGTON TEXAS ~ ARTIST NANCY STANDLEE ~ DAILY PAINTER ~
CONTEMPORARY ~ WATERCOLOR ~ ACRYLIC ~ COLLAGE ~ GOUACHE
ABSTRACT ~ EXPRESSIONIST ~ ART FOR SALE ~ FIGURATIVE ~ MIXED MEDIA ~ ALTERED BOOKS

Contact NancyStandlee@sbcglobal.net

Mel Stabin Watercolor Workshop ~ Watercolor Figure ~ Art Journal Page

15" x 13" Watercolor figure "San Miguel Market"
I painted this on Monday from one of Mel Stabin's photographs and I consider it a more successful effort than some landscapes later in the week. The project of the day was landscape but I like a figure better than a tree but I watched and listened to Mel and his "tree talk" and I may attempt one yet. I've posted a slide show below of student's work from the Artists' Showplace workshop (in the previous post I have a slide show of Mel's paintings). Remember each one is at a different place in their watercolor journey. We had one student present for her very first workshop and with Mel's guidance she had several real success stories. Apologies to class members that I didn't put your name under your work and this is a partial list and I will include more work in the next post. The paintings in the slide show cover the full 5 days.

Mel has written two books, Watercolor: Simple, Fast and Focused and The Figure in Watercolor: Simple, Fast and Focused. He said he has another book in the works about "dancing brushes" and he knows his way around his Raphael mop brush.

8" x 10 Watercolor on gessoed paper "San Miguel Lady with Calla Lilies"
I didn't use a photograph but just painted a portrait from my head and looked at some photos of calla lilies taken when I was in the San Miguel workshop. His comment "A lively painting painted by a lively person." I enjoy working on the gessoed paper as redo's are easier. When we'd be hesitant about starting on a half sheet and putting down that first mark, he'd give us the sage advice "Screw it. Just do it".

Art Journal Page 68
A small sketch of a workshop painting, fun to find new bags for supplies deeply discounted, a quick hamburger, two of my acrylic entries for PCPC and more about that in a future post, lunch at Potager and a new experience of no checks but you place money in an envelope for what you thought the meal was worth, then a dining experience at Sevy's before the SWS meeting.

Now for some of the student's paintings from the workshop and more to come in a later post.

Joe Fettingis Watercolor Workshop ~ VerveEarth

This is a work in progress (WIP) I started today in the Joe Fettingis Watercolor Workshop given by SWA. The eyes look a little squirrelly because I just removed the masking fluid showing the white of the paper and no one's eyes are ever that white. This painting will get more attention on Wednesday.
I have posted a slide show of some of the images of Joe's painting in progress and some of his framed pieces he brought from Indiana in his car. I wanted to share his lovely work and he will have to forgive me for the horrible glare on most of the pieces and then I tilted the camera to remove some of the glare. It is a real treasure to find so many original works of art on view by the workshop instructor.
"NOW WATCH THIS. HERE WE GO".
This is Joe's clarion call to us to assemble, get quiet, and begin to work. If you've ever taken one of his workshops I'm sure you know the drill. He is a real task master and told us if we needed to visit do it at lunch because he was there to teach and we were there to learn. And learn we did. Most of the workshops I've taken the instructor usually demonstrates in the morning and the students paint in the afternoon. Joe breaks down the painting process in several small demos during the day and we return to our "studio" to paint what he has just taught and I've found it to be a very effective way of learning. He gives us small things to learn and breaks the learning down into small bits and while we are applying the technique he is walking the room answering questions and giving more instruction. He provided our reference photo material, a dramatic lady with a large black hat and we all worked on it together. By 4:00 today as I walked the room and looked at each person's work, I was very impressed with the results. We should get this project finished Wednesday morning and begin a horse in the afternoon and I've never painted a horse so this will be fun.
Today we concentrated on techniques of paint application, values, moisture, color and composition. Joe's materials are discussed on his web site where he maintains The Smallest Brush/Colors Art Store in the Universe.
The Maimeri colors he uses are listed on the order form.
VerveEarth.com or Verve Earth
I've listed my blog on this very cool new site as bloggers are telling the world's stories as they happen and Verve Earth is meant to be a canvas for their voices. Travel the map/world and see a site that interests you. After you are registered you can add the destination to your favorites. On the left side is a zoom level and more content can be found by zooming in or you can do a search by typing in a city. I've had some trouble with their search button so just press enter on your keyboard. Type in Arlington, Texas and you should find Nancy Standlee Art Blog and the Artist Food Network that belongs to Canvas by Canvas (the collaborative group where I belong).
Enjoy the slide show below. Mouse over for captions.