Fealing Lin Watercolor Workshop ~ Watercolor Portrait ~ by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Self Portrait by Nancy Standlee
11" x 15" watercolor

Fealing Lin, N.W.S., from California was at the Artists' Showplace Gallery for a 5 day watercolor workshop October 26-30, 2009, on landscape painting but we had a delightful one day devoted to portrait painting. I am so glad as I did the above painting on Wednesday and my cityscape and landscape are too pathetic to post and are headed to the turkey pile for a future coat of gesso. Trees are just not my thing and all my buildings lean but I haven't given up. (Fealing has a web site but it is under construction at the present and when it gets online again I'll post the url so you can see her other lovely work.)

Fealing is a traditional watercolorist and she desired for us to have fun and relax and gave us some tools to apply to all mediums, stressing not to paint objects and hold on to the biggest brush as long as possible. She used a 3", 2" and 1 1/2" brush for most of her landscape and cityscape painting. She doesn't always squeeze out fresh paint and her palette was not pristine nor did you find her wiping it out after a few strokes. The choice of a photo is very important and she designs her compositions from several photographs, wanting a strong light and shadow pattern. Black isn't on her palette and she prefers mixing her darks, likes painting on a nearly upright easel and is not narrow minded about her pencil lines. She doesn't paint within the lines but lets the color "invade" other areas and in the beginning stages of a painting she wants her work to look messy.

I met Fealing in Italy at a Ted Nuttall portrait workshop in 2005 and it was a treat to paint with her again and I foolishly thought I'd have at least one great cityscape or landscape but think I'll stick with people for awhile. She uses a separate palette for her portraits and begins with a very light wash of several colors over the entire paper. When I discovered we'd do a portrait, I took the easy way out by painting myself and not alienating friends by taking a timed photo and sent it to Sams to be developed into an 8 x 10 and left off the glasses and some wrinkles. Since I'm in need of cataract surgery soon, maybe I'll be able to throw the glasses away. In any event, anyone will need dark, dark glasses to view my cityscape and landscape. I think Fealing is glad I'm not posting them so they won't be connected in any way with her name.


Slide Show:
Mouse over for captions and some of the photos were quickly taken and were reversed in the overhead mirror. I used F. L. for Fealing Lin and just Class under the student's work instead of giving individual names. The watercolor portrait by Fealing was a start and is not finished and she will email us the completed piece. We were just so very fortunate for her to include a day of portrait painting for us.

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TEXAS CONTEMPORARY ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST FINE ART DAILY PAINTER
NANCY STANDLEE ARLINGTON, TEXAS ART FOR SALE WATERCOLOR

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Cheng-Khee Chee Workshop ~ Day 4 ~ Crinkle Paper Technique ~ Slide Show

"Tree in Fredericksburg"
Mounted Masa paper
14" x 20"

Day four of the Cheng-Khee Chee workshop found us wetting and crinkling masa paper and aiming for "exciting texture" in our painting. Texas has many different trees to choose from but if you've followed this blog very long you won't remember very many "tree forms" found in my work. After we crinkled the paper then the paint was applied and yes, he showed us exactly how to "crinkle". Mine was nearing disaster status when I remembered I'd thrown in some white gouache in a fit of last minute packing and I was able to reclaim some of the rock and flower shapes. The tree still needs some hot licks and my signature.

Artists Opportunities:
If you belong to LinkedIn you might want to join Professional Fine Art Network. They have a blog and will post artist profiles HERE. Mine has recently been added. You might want to join and add yours if you're an artist and want to connect with fellow artists.

Artists might want to check out http://watercolorpainting.com/ for a place to add your blog or web site link. I have noticed in my stats that I'm getting visitors from this site. It's fee for adding your name and $25 a year for adding an image.
Submit your blog here: http://watercolorpainting.com/links-artist-blogs-and-journals.htm
and submit your web site: http://watercolorpainting.com/links-artists.htm
Here you can select your category and add your medium:
http://watercolorpainting.com/links.htm
You send your email to links@watercolorpainting.com and specify in the subject line where you would like to be listed.

Cheng-Khee Chee Slide Show: Enjoy some of his work. (Mouse over for titles)

Please visit my website and comment on my blog.
Find me on Facebook and LinkedIn.

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

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

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

Other blogs where I post:

Daily Painters of Texas

Daily Abstract Painters Gallery


TEXAS CONTEMPORARY ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST FINE ART DAILY PAINTER
NANCY STANDLEE ARLINGTON, TEXAS ART FOR SALE

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.

Mel Stabin Watercolor Workshop ~ Dallas ~ Art Journal Pages

Watercolor 15"x22" Sold
The client had a photo taken on a Cabo beach and asked for a painting. It was fun to paint but I had to ask for help several times. Mel is very helpful and I appreciate his calling out the colors used when he begins a demo.
I painted this in the Mel Stabin workshop during the first week of February at Artist's Showplace. This was painted on Thursday when Mel said it was "our choice" day. On Monday was landscape, Tuesday - landscape with figure, Wednesday - Something ordinary and sketched with a brush, Friday - the figure. This was my 3rd workshop with Mel and his workshops are filled with energy, his poems and quotes plus his fabulous watercolors to encourage us to a new level.
The morning was devoted to a Mel demo on a half sheet of Arches of our day's objective and then around lunch it was time for each of the 25 in the class to get down to business while Mel visited around the room. Most days ended with a great critique for each work.
We could paint from our own references or he provided some great photographs that he'd blown up to a 11x15 size. I remember at the Nicholas Simmons workshop he questioned working from 4 x 6 photos and how I could see the detail and now I understand what he meant. I'm getting some larger photos.
Cheap Joe's has a supply list for Mel if you'd like to see what colors and brushes we used, click HERE. There are no gimmicks, mask or salt for Mel. He says "I trust the brush. It can do amazing things."
In the slide show below I have shown some of his paintings and I will show more of the student work in another post.

Art Journal Page 66

Some art supplies needed for babysitting my grandchildren, some of my back fence fell over, then it's pack and pack for Mel, Dana Gioia kicks off the PCPC 3rd art festival,
and no I did not watch the Super Bowl - still trying to get every thing loaded for the workshop. Dana was chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts under President Bush since Jan 29, 2004.

Art Journal Page 67


Some sketches about the workshop, the value study where Mel corrected my car to make it larger, the bottom two sketches are my paintings.

A slide show feast of some of Mel's paintings from the Mel Stabin Workshop. Mouse over for captions.

Janet Rogers Workshop ~ Flowers Watercolor ~ Art Journal Pages

This 21" x 13" watercolor floral was done in the Janet Rogers workshop and I tried out some of her colors and techniques. See the previous post for more information about the workshop. She has 2 excellent dvd's available from Cheap Joe's and you can see a YouTube preview for the portrait here, and for the floral here. This floral dvd is "so Janet" when you hear her say "That's boring. No, I don't like that" and it gives us new courage to quickly change our minds. Janet and her husband Steve are planning a painting trip to Italy and everyone in the class was interested in hearing about this fabulous trip. In my Art Journal this week (really September 22-24) you will see the "ABC project" designed by Karen Foster and Cindy Campbell, and still so new we don't have a sneak peek yet on the Canvas by Canvas web site. But note that we have about 14 new paintings at the Petroleum Club in Fort Worth. Click on the Paintings tab to read about each one. I've ordered books on Vista and I've enrolled in some of HP's free classes online. These are great classes, usually about 4 lessons long and if you don't have time to complete all of them, save the lessons on your hard drive, and review them later. There is a teacher and message board for students to meet and ask questions.
There is always some food involved in my journal and after eating again at Fish City Grill Arlington and trying a side dish of Cajun Red Beans and Rice I found a package of the small red beans at Albertsons, got out the crock pot and found my directions and experimented. The chef at Fish City had given me a few of the dried beans to carry in my pocket while I searched the grocery stores. My beans were not as tasty but I will cook on top of the stove next time and try some of their suggestions. I substituted some smoked Polish Kielbasa sausage for the Andouille sausage and the purists may cringe. I usually just stick with pinto beans (our Texas red beans) but these small red beans looked like a smaller cousin. Even Wikipedia has an entry for this Louisiana dish and it makes so much it is a great dish to share.

Myrna Wacknov Workshop ~ Thursday ~Cedar Hill TX

In the previous post, I discussed the watercolor workshop in Cedar Hill with Myrna Wacknov. Today we drew our children's portraits, Myrna gave an excellent demo on using the Tyvek snythetic paper and made it look sooo easy as she painted an Indian and we were getting antsy... and most of us had a feeling of "let me get at it --I know I can do it " before and during the demo, and we were given some of her liquid Hydrus watercolor paints. The seven of us were very confident after the demo but I hit a stone wall. Some had great paintings but I'm not even showing mine. I painted, wiped, added gouache, wiped, sprayed with water, hit with a watercolor pencil, wiped and scrubbed it several times and there it sits face down on the table so it won't scare the night cleaning person. I think Tyvek paper is pretty stong because I sure gave it lots of abuse today.
I didn't get photos of many pieces today. Everyone was just so busy painting and wrestling Tyvek. I will post some photos of Myrna's work on Tyvek, a few of the buildings, and one of Debra's on watercolor paper.

Joe Fettingis Watercolor Workshop ~ Day 2

Nancy's work in progress at the Joseph Fettingis workshop. I see I need to adjust the horn shapes in the background near the spirit necklace and add more color to the face. The computer monitor can point out your mistakes all too well. This is a vignette but I think I ran my vest and sleeve off the page too far. I'm including Suzanne's painting as her approach was very original where the rest of the 19 students stayed with Joe's colors. I told Betty that I'd take her photo to go with her painting after we finished eating at Joe T's (my most favorite place in the whole world to eat) and we were so stuffed with refried beans, enchiladas and tortillas I completely forgot it.
"Now watch this. Here we go", Joe calls out on day 2 and I feel like we're just getting started and wish the workshop was a five day one instead of 3. His teaching methods are top notch in my book and you can see the links in my web site on how many workshops I've taken in the last few years so I can recognize a good teacher when I find one. Joe talked a little about cameras and photography of models, how to control the flow of pigments, and gave us short demos on the scarf, folds in the shirt, color and how to move it in your painting, how to use scrubbers, and backgrounds. He has a "funny little accent" and I'm sure he thinks the same about some of us...me! He said he was in Venezuela until the age of 14. I don't have an excuse for my "funny little accent".
About 2:30, we put away our "lady cowgirl" and we given our horse photo to begin placing on our watercolor paper and we got on our masking fluid so we're ready to begin painting a horse on Thursday. There is a lot of excitement in the workshop and he has made learning fun, fun, even if he is a little strict with his "No Talking" rules but we are definitely the beneficiary and I've handled this better than some of my "friends" had predicted.
Joe was the juror for the SWA show and our opening reception is Thursday evening at the Central Library in downtown Fort Worth. Tomorrow will be a rush day to paint and then get to the show by 6:00 p.m. We take down on Sunday so you have only a few days left to view the show.
I hear lots of rolling thunder and we're under all kinds of watches so I'm out of here until later in the week and maybe I'll have more artists to show with their work...maybe even a horse or two.

Betty's Painting
Betty is a member of Canvas by Canvas and our web mistress. She sent around an email tonight that will make you sorry you missed the workshop. I quote "He's really a wonderful instructor and spends a lot of time breaking things down into understandable chunks and letting us work on part of a painting so we can apply the information, before going on to the next step. I've learned a lot about the reasoning behind applying paint to paper in watercolor: how to control the moisture and assist the eye in moving throughout the painting -- even after all these years I've never had anyone explain things so clearly. And really, we are all very respectful of his request that we not talk amongst ourselves while he is teaching or while we are working, but he's always full of amusing anecdotes and the class is never boring. He is one of the most organized and disciplined artists I've ever met -- truly an amazing experience. Makes me want to get back to watercolor more often."


Suzanne's Red Hat Painting


Suzanne


Joe's Closeup of the background

Arne Westerman Workshop ~ Day 5 ~ SWS

$125 Workshop Painting
Karen and CY 15 x 22 at Point Bolivar


Graduation Day

7 x 11 Color Sketch

7 x 11 Color Sketch Port Bolivar Girls

The notes were very brief on day 5 of the Arne Westerman Workshop by the Southwestern Watercolor Society and the day ended much too soon. Our graduation ended with Arne giving us our Artistic License and our group was definitely better Friday and on Monday.

In the morning, some developed more thumbnails and color sketches for a larger painting and some worked on paintings already started. I chose to develop 2 new ideas that are shown here. Arne suggested I use the same color of bathing suit on the Port Bolivar Girls and I may change or not. On my large painting of Karen and CY, I showed him the photo and said "I don't do teeth" and presented him a tracing of Karen with shortened face and no teeth. That was not going to be o.k. with him. Arne said "We do teeth"! So this is Nancy's painting with Arne teeth plus other touches and accents along the way.

The group ate lunch together at the Panda Express and continued with photos (some discretely of the customers) and art talk. We returned to class to paint and see a few more slides and get our license, make our goodbyes. This was a very good congenial class.

Some last Arne pointers:

1. Everything can't be interesting. Kill Something to save your painting.

2. Don't leave holes in your painting. (I tend to leave little spaces of white sparkles in the painting and I like them.)

3. Don't make a painting all headlines.

4. Remember to do thumbnails and color sketches before a painting.

Arne is very talented, witty and loves people and if you can take his watercolor workshop, run and sign up now. He's in his early 80's and has gained lots of "people wisdom" and painting knowledge along the way. He possesses great teaching and communication skills. He could "kill" the whistle he has hanging around his neck - his call for attention from too talkative students but then it was also a call, come look at this student's work and watch this.

If you're interested in people painting, watch people, listen to their conversations, take photos, and sketch them when you can.

He will have a gallery show in Rockport Texas soon and I will try and get more information and post the details.

Thanks, Arne, for a delightful, well-spent week. On the way home, I stopped at La Madelines for spinach salad and tomato basil soup to complete a perfect week. Today, Saturday, my art "stuff" is still not put away and I've really taken it easy with a good afternoon nap in my easy chair. Then it's back to reality with a week's mail and plans for a Thanksgiving dinner. But to all of my friends in the class, I loved painting with you and look forward to our next workshop together. Arne, you're welcome in Texas anytime and we'll be your Texas "groupies" working on our next degree.

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Eat Well ~ Paint Your Food ~ Laugh Often

Donna Zagotta Workshop Slideshow

I hope you enjoy some of the photos from the Donna Zagotta Workshop held at the Artists' Showplace. Click HERE to read another post about the workshop. Notice to all the painters.. I get dibs on painting Gail's wild shoes. Now I wish I'd taken a photo of everyone in the workshop.