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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Roosters ~ Sister Chicks ~ Iron Horse Inn ~ Granbury, TX

Rooster #1 (there's more on the way)
9" x 11" Watercolor on 140 lb. paper

Six "sister chicks" of Canvas by Canvas have been on a weekend painting retreat at the Iron Horse Inn in Granbury. At one of the last paint outs at the Lake House I took lots of good "fowl" pictures and decided this was the time to experiment. It was a cold, rainy time but Cindy, Karen, Maryann, Barbara, Connie and I did not care what the weather was about once we got unloaded and set up in Theresa's and Paul's Artistic retreat studio. Theresa is Irish and it was fun to hear the owners talk about their travels and Theresa is also a fellow blogger. We enjoyed wonderful breakfasts and met a young couple, Dr. Jason Moore and his wife, Amanda, who are doctors. See their photo in the slide show below and chickens, and more chickens. We ate at Babe's Chicken on Friday evening and there were chickens in the rafters and we were supposed to be celebrating the two members' (who didn't come) birthdays. But that has never bothered us with a birthday celebration so we had our very own proxy birthday girl, Maryann to do the chicken dance and blow out the candle. We had great food at Babe's and a whole bunch of fun. Betty and Margie sorry you missed your birthday celebrations.

Art Journal Page 73
Not one of my better days with clear beverages and a tooth crown, and a "procedure", a trip to Strawn to eat at Mary's Cafe where she serves chicken fried steaks that hang off large white platters with lots of white gravy, the brick smoke stack at Thurber. I got a note from Fealing Lin saying that she's going to be having a workshop in Dallas soon. I painted with her in a Tuscany workshop with Ted Nuttall. You will enjoy looking at Fealing's and Ted's watercolors on their sites. I needed a new travel brush.

Art Journal Page 74
A blog joke about early bloggers, a joke about big arms and email checking, (I relate to both of them), Myrna mentioned the Precise Pen in a post and I also like that pen for a pen sketch before adding some watercolor and it gives some diluted lines and interesting color. I have the "smaller laptop" bug, and Granbury packing taking some journaling supplies and next post I'll show some slides from the Tony Saladino critique.
Myrna also wrote a nice tribute to artist Al Zerries.

Mouse over for the slide show captions.

Autumn Portrait ~ Art Workshops ~ Elvis Week ~ In the Ghetto ~ Nancy Standlee Art Blog

Autumn 2
Autumn 1
Not for sale
11" x 15" Watercolor portrait on 300 lb paper
Autumn 1 was painted in a Ted Nuttall workshop in 2004 in Dallas. It was one of my first portraits and I am just now ready to pass the painting on to the subject as she is leaving for college in a few weeks. A painting holds so many memories that it's hard to let go of some of them but it's time. Later, I painted Autumn 2 for me to keep as a remembrance. Ted had told us not to paint a loved one as it would be more difficult because of the emotions involved so I didn't listen. Sometimes I do listen. Ted is a wonderful person and delightful instructor. Since that time I've taken other Ted Nuttall workshops and one of the best was in Italy where we stayed in a Tuscan villa with side trips to neighboring towns but that needs to be told in an additional post.
Another reason for thinking portraits is my October 07 copy of Watercolor Magic that came this week and it contained a portrait article: Face Forward, p. 48 about Myrna Wacknov and her portraits. I love her technique and corresponded with her immediately to tell her so. Watercolor Magic has a file to download about using Photoshop Elements to enhance the color of photos and it is excellent. Now I want to take a workshop with her but for now I'll try out the Photoshop Elements Technique. Thanks, Watercolor Magic for that pdf file.

Since this is Elvis week and it's drawing to a close, I need to mention him. He performed in the early 50's around Stephenville but my thoughts were about making some summer school credits at Tarleton State and I missed the opportunity to see him early in his career. I've been to Graceland, saw him in concert in Virginia, and in 2005 the Texas State Fair had an exhibit with him carved in butter. You be the judge.

And in Texas we have fans that grew up with Elvis and here is a photo of one I couldn't resist taking as he was viewing the Elvis exhibit of his personal memorabilia on that Fair Day.

There have been blog tributes all week.
I enjoyed this video clip of Lisa Marie and Elvis singing In the Ghetto..

Have a great weekend, paint a portrait and remember Elvis!

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