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 ~ Watercolor and Acrylic by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Watercolor on 140 lb paper
Skip Lawrence is in Dallas for the Southwestern Watercolor Society for a 5 day workshop at Asel Art. Can you imagine the temptation of being upstairs and over one of the largest art supply stores in Dallas and being enticed at every break. Fortunately they do not run a tab but you pay at every purchase. Skip was scheduled in February but was snowed in and I think everyone showed up today as we have a full house. I will post a slide show later in the week of some of his demo paintings.
We spent the day talking about how art is personal and we explored how to make our art personal and unique to us. He cautioned us not to copy him but to take chances and paint some of our own ideas. Skip talked about Georgia O'Keeffe and how different her floral paintings were.

Georgia O'Keeffe - "I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to ... I found that I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way-- things I had no words for."


Skip talked to us about how a painting needs a good technique, design and ideas. To get us started we took a full sheet and taped it off into 9 sections and tried to turn some of our emotions into ideas. For example, sad, lonely, a sunny day, a party at Pattie's were some I tried. I didn't get finished but had to move on to start my larger painting. It was not working on my half sheet of paper so I turned it around and tried to find a mood and refined with some figures. It may or may not be finished.

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

Stephen Quiller Workshop ~ Day 3 and 4

This large sheet watercolor was painted by Stephen Quiller for the SWS meeting Wednesday night. There was standing room only to meet him and see his slides of paintings from all over the world but a lot of them were painted in his beloved Colorado. You find out very soon about his love of nature and painting the outdoors. When the snow is on the ground, then it's time for him to pick up his sketch pad and cross country ski. These works were painted flat so the students could view them in the overhead mirror but en plein air he paints vertically.


Above is a closeup of a small watercolor study of Stephen's done yesterday.One of my favorites. There is so much texture and interest with the splattering and negative painting.

Today we got into the use of acrylics and glazing. Above the first small study demo that Stephen did. Then it's our turn and I don't care to share my attempt. It's only a few steps back to your working area from the demo area and he makes it look super easy and you just know you can go back and do likewise. Well, forget that. No one paints landscapes like Stephen and I don't have the desire to paint landscapes but I wanted to study them with him. What a great opportunity with him in the area and I do breathe easier here than in his high mountain Colorado. He has made us all more color conscious and aware of landscapes many possibilities.
He began this lovely poppy study right before lunch by laying in all the orange shapes first and all I could see was candy corn and thinking when can we eat. Luscious acrylic painting. He has his own set of marks and distinctive brushwork and we practice in the air hoping to paint an aspen or poppy that looks even a little like his.
This is a watercolor of mine from yesterday. Four days of class with a late night meeting is beginning to show and I wasn't very happy with today's results.
A friend that follows my blog has asked if I'd post the 12 colors he uses for his travel palette and I will in a later post.
He's written 5 books, has his own line of watercolor and acrylics, color wheels, palettes, paper and instructional dvd's and he is a student of art history, of paints and their properties. The man knows a lot about landscape painting. He states that his 12 color palette can be taken anywhere and any color can be mixed from it and the theory of this placement goes back to the 1830's. A catalogue of his products can be ordered from his web site.

Lylas 2 ~ "Connie" Gamut Control ~ New Giclees

LYLAS 2

LYLAS 2 " Connie" Acrylic
9" x 12" Gallery Wrapped Canvas, 3/4" profile black (depth)

LYLAS is Internet slang for Love You Like A Sister (see this post) and this is the second in the series.
Last week Gamut Control made me two more giclees. One for "Shop Talking" and one for "Our Crystal Bridge", and the original was sent to the Bridging Heaven and Earth Foundation. See my entry at this site. Giclees can be ordered from me. Artists can contact the organization if they would like to participate in the Bridging project.
Check my web site for more information on Gamut's fine art reproduction process. John from Gamut said "Shop Talking" was the first giclee used to introduce the new Image Capture process. It will be formally introduced June 7. John said, "It came out better than the original." The process is no glare and eliminates cross filtering and maintains the texture and it is a 20 layer image. Here are my other images on the Gamut artist site.
Last week was the monthly SWS meeting and Gale Webb from Lubbock gave a great figurative demo painting with liquid acrylics. Thanks Gale and I'm sorry I missed your SWS workshop. H & R Block has been breathing down my neck. Aren't we glad April 15th is over for another year and we all promise to keep better records and receipts.

Other blogs where I post:

http://artistfoodnetwork.blogspot.com

http://canvasbycanvas.blogspot.com

http://myspace.com/nancystandlee

Nancy’s web site: http://www.nancystandlee.com

TO PURCHASE PAINTINGS: Go to Paypal on http://nancystandlee.blogspot.com

Eat Well ~ Paint Your Food ~ Laugh Often

LYLAS 1 ~ "Elizabethy" ~ Contemporary Abstract Figures ~ There Is A Limit ~ CBC

Sold
LYLAS 1 Acrylic
9" x 12" Gallery Wrapped Canvas, 3/4" profile black (depth)
LYLAS is Internet slang for Love You Like A Sister and it gets used a lot in the emails that fly back and forth between the nine Canvas by Canvas member collaborative group. Since I don't have a sister they all fill that special sibling spot. You notice the title LYLAS 1? Guess what? Lylas will be another series as the result of a CBC request. The CBC members have liked the work I've been producing as the result of my study with Robert Burridge and have requested a Nancy "Burridge" workshop Sunday afternoon, April 13 at the Upstairs Gallery. Lylas 1 was painted on Saturday as I was planning what I would present to them and I reviewed my notes and Bob's workbook. I began by having them write down their intentions and tone their paper or canvas, explained my Burridge color wheel, told them a few "Bobisms" like paint for yourself today and stay wet and loose, and try a lot of "what ifs" (some of my favorite words). The composition (design) would be either vertical or cruciform as they want to experiment with the contemporary abstract figures without a model and just painting from their imaginations. Seven members showed up Maryann Stephens, Karen Foster, Cindy Campbell, Connie Michael, Betty Taylor, Barbara Hackney and Cindy Yandell. We're sorry Margie Whittington couldn't be with us. Some were ambitious and got there about 10:00 a.m. and began on a CBC project. We had a great day of painting. ordered pizza in and enjoyed each other's company and painted something we'd never seen before. I've made a slide show of the work produced today and it can be seen at the end of the post.
The class started at 1:00 and I think the last person left about 7:00 (Connie and I). They were very kind and helped me unload my car filled with stamps, paint, paper, texturing tools, books and notes. The Lylas produced some great work and ventured out and took a risk and enjoyed exploring painting from their emotions, dreams, and creative vision.
EMAIL HINT: My email has been giving me fits. About once a week I get this red message that says "unusual activity detected - Your account has been suspended for 48 hours, blah, blah" and I couldn't send or receive and anything sent to me would be bounced back to the sender like I hadn't paid my bill. It's been making me nuts. I call support and tell them I'm a little 72 year old grannie that doesn't spam anyone but just email my painting friends and a few relatives. Now my painting friend emails do add up hence my knowing about lylas. You will be left behind in the dust if you can't keep up with hourly emails from the CBC group. Finally, finally the call yesterday (after being assigned a case number) and running a spy ware program on my computer, my case was sent to the 2nd level of support and now we're getting somewhere. I was assigned to Kornelius, a perfectly delightful man who fixed my problemo. And he did it in the kindest way by saying "You're so active with your emails". Isn't that a sweet way of saying "hey, lady, you need to clean up your email". It seems I have 8,873 messages in my inbox and 21,751 in my sent folder so he had me remove 250 from my sent folder and now the problem is fixed temporarily. He was very nice when he said "There is a limit". It seems attachments seem to compound the problem. I promised Kornelius that I'd start cleaning up my act and need to work on another problem that is running concurrently and that is cleaning my house. My lylas friends were discussing a book title that would never find your name on it as an author and I quickly replied, "100 Best Housekeeping Hints by Nancy".
It seems that the Burridge workshops and emailing my "lylas" and painting is taking a big part of my time. I will put clean house and emails on my to do list but please resend the message if you get a bounced email. I don't want to miss a one.
Bob Burridge will give a workshop in 2009 in Dallas through the SWS and I hear it is full with 9 people on the waiting list. I'm doing my part in spreading the news about how fun it is to be in "Bobland".
Mouse over slide for captions.

Arne Westerman Workshop ~ Day 1 ~ SWS

Arne

His famous "L's"
Our five day Southwestern Watercolor Society workshop with instructor Arne Westerman began today. I will post a few highlights minus some of the funny jokes. He began painting after a successful career in advertising at about age 50.
1. He asked us to do things "his way" this week and that included careful planning of our design before painting.
2. We brought our own reference material and took that photo and did a 4 x 5 value and composition thumbnail. Each student's work is critiqued in a group situation so all benefited from the instruction.
3. He used the "L" shapes, cut up mats, to crop and edit these thumbnails and photos still looking for the best design.
4. He was not happy that so many of us brought small 4 x 6 photos to work from. He loved it when someone had an 8 x 10 to work from. He had large photos to share for any that didn't bring a project to paint on.
5. There is no such thing as equality in a painting. Something has to be dominant and the center of interest.
6. Forget accuracy and go for the artistic statement.
7. Try to be original in thinking and working and do not copy the photograph but make it your own. Move things around. Don't reproduce what you see but use what you need.
8. He promises to show us "how not to worry about our backgrounds".
9. Tuesday we will work on our 7 x 11 color study from our thumbnail.
10. First thing in the morning we'll see his slides and more discussion about what makes a good painting.
We are painting in Irving in a large room at the Jaycee Park, Center for the Arts, one of the BEST places to take a workshop. We have a table to ourselves, kitchen facilities, with large sliding glass doors to the outside where there is a park and a small pond with ducks. The weather was sunny and warm. It was a great day. At many workshops, participants have stayed up late the night before getting ready, nervous about the instructor, and start out wondering if will they get a "good" spot or know anyone, travel long distances and in sometimes horrible, slow moving traffic but despite all of these obstacles you have a great time trying out new techniques and we'll be ready for Arne's instructions on how to complete our color studies for our masterpiece.

The Bakers ~ Figurative Painting ~ Art Blog ~ Arne Westerman Tribute

$80.00
11" x 15" Watercolor on 140 lb. hot press paper
The Bakers was painted in an Arne Westerman workshop and it might have been from a photo he had provided for us to use. It is a loose, experimental piece on hot press paper and I didn't try for perfection and I simplified the scene. Arne likes Lanaquarelle hot press. His book, Paint Watercolors Filled with Life and Energy, was one I checked out at the library and I thought it so informative, I now own an autographed paperback. It was published in 1994 and Amazon has 31 used copies and you can click on my Amazon link to check for updates. A Westerman workshop is filled with surprises and humor and he will be in our area November 12-16, 2007 in Irving through the SWS. He is a member of the American Watercolor Society and the National Watercolor Society. I am signed up for my second workshop with him. Arne uses color with boldness, hot press paper, gives permission to paint from photos, and advises it's o.k. to get inspiration from other artists.

He says talent is overrated. Ambition, determination and just plain hard work can more than compensate for a lower rating in the talent department. Register your feelings and express your perspective. Don't be a Rockwell. He already did it.

I like to read the Suggested Reading List at the back of books and in Arne's I found a book mentioned by an old friend, Jack Clifton, Eye of the Artist, 1984. (Amazon has 5 of these used starting at $5.95). I took a few acrylic classes from Jack while I lived in Hampton, Va. and I was continually frustrated because I couldn't draw and he caught me one night with a push pen and string stuck in my painting board trying to draw a circle for a plate for a still life set up. (I've since learned better). Life got in the way, I switched to batik for a period, and didn't take any more art classes until I retired. Arne says of Jack's book "He has everything you want to know in a nutshell." And I'm in good company, Arne didn't start watercolor painting until he was in his 50's. Arne may have copies of his book available on his site.
This photo shows Arne and me with the end of the class presentation.


As a retired librarian/artist, I suggest you get a library card and find books on painting and then start your own library of favorite sources. You'll return to them again and again. I use my books like workbooks, even autographed ones. I highlight, draw and write notes in them. I didn't buy them for an investment.
I've packed my Arne book on the top of the stack that is being prepared for a Port Bolivar beach road trip by some of the Canvas by Canvas group leaving next week. Port Bolivar is one of the first ports established in Texas. We are planning to eat seafood, paint some watercolors, beach sit, and take lots and lots of photos of every thing - shrimp boats, our food, people.

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