Skip Lawrence Workshop ~ Day 5, Friday ~ Watercolor and Acrylic by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Friday's Acrylic on 200 lb. watercolor paper 11" x 15"
I guess this is my least favorite painting I did all week in the Skip Lawrence workshop and I will work on it some more. I couldn't wait to get back to my acrylics and then they gave me trouble. One thing I was looking at a photo I'd taken of two women walking and I think I tried to make them too realistic and the other work I'd done during the week was more from memory. Skip's next workshops can be found on his website. Skip and Christopher Schink are editors and chief contributors of The Palette Magazine and it's filled with ideas and lessons on painting. Back issues are available.

Our class.. and thanks to Ron Stephens for sending me one of his photographs.
This is taken from the back of the room, zoomed in through the demo mirror above and remember that in the slide show of some of Skip's paintings so there is some distortion in color and shape. On Friday Skip agreed to an acrylic demo and I brought some fluid acrylics, paper plates and brushes and gessoed paper for him to use. He asked for a red, yellow and blue, black and white gesso. He chose to paint on his on 300 lb paper that was not gessoed. Thanks to Skip for doing this for us. I thought the readers would find it interesting to see how he places the colors in one disposable plate and works from there. I certainly did and then tried it with the above painting. In the critique he said that I'm a colorist and "forget my values".
In the following slide show the work is from Skip's demo and some paintings he brought with him and remember some of the photos were taken through the overhead mirror and from my tv screen. I mentioned I have his color dvd and I tried taking a photo from the tv of the finished painting and it works ..somewhat. This was not a figure workshop and we didn't have models to pose. Some in the class painted animals, dogs, cats, and horses but I like to paint figures and so it's again trying to decide watercolor or acrylic? (Mouse over for captions)

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

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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"My Heart on a Monday" ~ Acrylic Abstract on Paper ~ by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

"My Heart on a Monday"
10" x 10" Acrylic on Paper

I've been making a stab at cleaning up in my studio and found this painting from the Robert Burridge workshop at Dena's in February. Why the delay? One Facebook poster put it well when she stated "It takes numerous breaks to access the situation." So in between assessments I'll post this. Bob has just begun a 5 day workshop this morning in Hot Springs, Arkansas and I have a good friend in attendance and I'm just thinking about all in the class this morning. I've often told Bob "There is no where else in the world I'd rather be on a Monday morning than in a Robert Burridge workshop." Joan on Facebook says "Bobette's aim higher".


Experimenting with Altered Book Journals:
I love writing and painting in a Canson All Media sketchbook or an Aquabee or Raffine Art Sketch - Something with 80 to 100 lb. paper that will accept water media but after reading more about altered books I wanted to try it. I have lots of old books around but didn't want to make a choice on which one I'd destroy so I made a trip to the local thrift store and found so many it was hard to make a choice. I eventually bought 3 - ranging from $1.00 to $2.00 and began gluing pages together. Now this can take awhile because finding the right glue takes a long time and I haven't found it yet. One has wrinkled badly but this one "The Low-Fat Ways to Cook Meat" is better and is has a ring binder so it can lay flat while working. Why do this? I feel like I can be expressively messy and hide secrets in these and if I need to tear out a page, o.k.
This first 2 pages in the altered book are all about "How Things Get Connected" and how your brain takes many detours and paths from one incident. I was on Facebook and saw Bob's photo of a wine barrel he'd painted for an auction through the Central Coast Wine Classic. My brain went wine barrel, rain barrel, cellar door and searching for the words for the "Oh, Playmate" song and making a journal entry after finding an antique book with other images. Then the trail got darker when I remembered a playmate and a cellar door. She took one of her father's cigarettes to try it out but chose a bad location, an old dried up fence row during a hot Texas summer. She caught the darn thing on fire but it was quickly put out but the smoke from the dried grasses and weeds was noticeable. She was placed in their dark cellar as punishment and I don't remember how long I just remember hearing her screams and cries. No one intervened because it was their family's business but it sure made a believer out of me. I saw her at our 50th high school reunion and I don't know if she smokes now or not. I didn't ask or ask about what happened that day. I was in college until I tried to "practice" smoking ..well maybe one other time but that's another story.
The book I chose to alter.

Bob and his Wine Barrel - the reason for the journal page.

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

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Abstract Watercolor Journal Page by Nancy Standlee

This is about 4.5 inch square abstract watercolor that I've decided to use in my journal. It is from a class I took from Angie Vangalis the evening of April 14 at the Jaycee Center for the Arts in Irving. Below is the instructions I followed. The pencil lines in the background are 5 words chosen from a poem which are connected and the ink lines were made by writing one word and stretching it out. The dark black line is from Sumi Ink. Oh, how I wish for every workshop and class I've ever taken that I had made a journal entry with the palette colors and an example of a painting.
This journal is a Raffine Art Sketch, 100 lb. paper, 9" x 12" and 48 sheets.
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

Contact NancyStandlee@sbcglobal.net