Cheerful and Colorful Paintings

Cheerful and Colorful Paintings in Oil, Acrylic, Mixed Media and Collage
nancystandlee@sbcglobal.net

Showing posts with label Lubbock TX. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lubbock TX. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Carla O’Connor Workshop, Day 3, Wednesday, October 10, 2007 ~ Lubbock, TX ~ Art Blog


CARLA'S DEMO TUES. EVE.


WIND TURBINES





NANCY'S START ON WED.


15 x 22 Above is Gouache on hot press watercolor paper. This is my start for today and will work on it more Thursday with Carla's help. (See previous posts this week about the workshop.) After taking a digital photo and placing it on my laptop it looks like the imaginary figures are little sunflower heads. That will never do. It is always helpful to look at your work on a computer screen and reversed and in a mirror.
To the right is a better photo of Carla's demo last night. We all enjoyed looking at it today and she calls these her Time Travelers.



We had more time to paint today. We had another good model and Carla did short impromptu demo paintings and drawing techniques when she saw that we needed some help. I heard this across the room today and it is so Texan and friendly. "If y'all need some more paper, just holler." There are friendly, nice people in the workshop.



Today we concentrated on the SCALE principle of design and we drew several sized drawings on watercolor paper with all heads at the same line to show scale. Carla gave us a realistic head demo and talked about drawing the feature placement.




In 1540, Spanish explorer Captain Francisco Vasquez de Coronado brought an expedition to the South Plains and named the area Llano Estacado, or staked plains and found Indians, buffalo, antelope, prairie dogs and coyotes. In 1876, Lubbock County was re-named in honor of Texas Ranger and Confederate colonel, Thomas S. Lubbock.
For some readers not from Texas, they just have some great Texas city and town names in this area, such as Muleshoe, Levelland, Plainview, Post, Sweetwater, Brownfield, Meadow, and Idalou. Don’t you just love saying those names? Well, I grew up in De Leon and the way we say it, people are always asking “How do you spell that?”
I’ve posted a photo taken while driving the speed limit for sure, out my car window just snapping with one eye on the road, and shows these other worldly, another planet looking wind turbines. These use the wind resources and are available in the area and are reliable and efficient and you will find many wind farms while driving in this area – like 60,000 acres worth in Taylor and Nolan Counties where you’ll find the
world’s largest wind farm. Texans really like to lay claim to the biggest and best and largest. We really can’t help it. It’s genetic. (Hee, hee, I think that means we beat California) and I the most I know about it is how to take a photo of the wind turbines.

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Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Carla O’Connor Workshop, Day 2, Tuesday, October 9, 2007 ~ Lubbock, TX ~ Art Blog

NANCY'S START TODAY ON 1/2 SHEET WATERCLOR PAPER


CARLA WORKING ON HER DEMO PAINTING

CARLA'S DEMO TONIGHT (will get a better photo Wed. as this was through the overhead mirror and colors are more muted and painting is reversed.)

The Carla O’Connor Workshop is being held at 511 Avenue K (Mac Davis Lane and Ave. K) at The Underwood Center for the Arts. There are multiple studios, visual art galleries, a theatre and a rehearsal hall. First Friday Art Trail includes a monthly evening of arts and entertainment in downtown Lubbock. This art campus was planned to reflect the traditions of Lubbock and to create future traditions. “Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it!” –Robert Motherwell

The West Texas Watercolor Society is sponsoring this workshop. This is my 3rd visit to Lubbock to take a workshop with them. They are a talented group and best of all they are super friendly and fun to paint with.

The class today was packed with Carla's activities and instructions for us. And TEXTURE was one of the design principles discussed today. We had an excellent new model from the WTWS group and began on time 9:00 with about 40 poses in quick succession again on the same piece of paper to get us loosened up. She gave us hints on drawing the figure, for example, tie an imaginary plumb line to the ear through the center of the body to get the weight distributed correctly. We did a practice sheet, then on a 1/2 sheet of watercolor a figure with every black type of marking device (pens, crayons, charcoal, inks) we had plus black, white and grey gouache. We could only use one tool until Carla called out "change" then we'd pick up another tool of our choice and begin drawing where we left off all the while creating texture on the page. After lunch, each participant presented a painting or two for a critique. Carla wanted to see what type of work each one of us was currently doing and we all benefitted from hearing her comments. During the composition discussion I got so sleepy I nearly feel out of my chair and the note taking trails off looking like a someone had flat lined on a tv medical show. (I will add that it was not Carla but my nearly 72 year old body about to revolt from the schedule I've made for it for the past 2 months). I keep telling it to hang with me till Thanksgiving and we'll be home free. We painted for about hour to hour and a half and I got started on a piece I'd drawn in the a.m. and that is the piece in the photo. I want to do more drawing on the layers and it was Carla's suggestion to keep the figure white in the center. I liked the piece until after the demo and saw Carla's Time Travelers and I took another look at mine and thought how sad it looked but then you give yourself a little pep talk..this is your first time trying her technique, you had fun, and you learned some new stuff..go for it.

The demo at 7:00 p.m. was as exciting as we'd hoped it would be. She came with her design drawn on a gold gessoed toned hot press watercolor paper and proceeded to show us how she applies the paint. Her painting looked great to us but she said it takes her weeks to complete. It was a copy of one she did for the dvd for Creative Catalyst. She said the biggest hurdle we face is getting enough paint on the paper. We all laughed when she said "I could lick all the paint off some of these paintings (from people not using enough paint) and not get sick". We get the idea. Be generous with the paint.
The meeting room for the
WTWS class is surrounded by designer dresses covered with plastic. Upon closer inspection these clothes are from other decades and were purchased from a local high end store in Lubbock. Read about Margaret’s HERE.

From the time Margaret’s opened in 1946 at Boston and 26th until it closed in 1994 at Broadway and Avenue T, this unique landmark was Lubbock’s window into the world of couture fashion and much more.
In the decades before West Texans visited New York, Paris, or Rome , Margaret’s was their portal to clothing available only in major cities. Once the store moved to Broadway and Avenue T, Lubbock had an establishment that could have been plucked from the finest shopping areas in Dallas, Chicago, or Los Angeles.
On the walls are enlarged views of the hand-drawn images of the figures that appeared in the newspaper ads and clothes under plastic ready for a show. Some of the images can be seen in the photos taken this week.
Other interesting places to visit in
Lubbock:


Buddy Holly Center
Celebrate the life and achievements of Lubbock’s son, Buddy Hollyand see his guitar, the Stratocaster, and famous glasses. The Center also has the Texas Musician Hall of Fame and the Lubbock Fine Arts Gallery.

Texas Tech
Lubbock is home to Texas Tech University, home to about 28,000 students and a public art program ranked among the nation’s 10 best.


Museum houses more than 120 rare and fully restored windmills located on more than 28 acres in Yellow House Canyon.

I’ve just come from visiting wineries around Mendocino, California and found Texas has wineries located around Lubbock.
Llano Estacado Winery

Texas’ most award-wining winery. Most of the world-class grapes used by the winery are grown within a 100mile radius of Lubbock.

Cap Rock Winery


La Diosa Cellars located in the Depot Entertainment District
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