Sandi D'Alessando Workshop Part 2 ~ Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

"The Dressing Room"
16" x 20"
Acrylic and collage on gessoed foam core

This has been a busy workshop schedule with Liz Hill, Lana Grow, Fealing Lin, and now Sandi D'Alessandro and a daughter's wedding on Saturday, Nov. 7 at a Burleson winery. The wedding was still very much on my mind when we came to the project with the foam core and I remembered the dressing room area with curling irons, girls in stages of dress, and wine and I painted and collaged some of the memories.

Here is a slide show of some of Sandi's work and student's work and the disclaimer. Some of the student's work was very abstract and when you're snapping photos quickly I may not have them turned correctly and some were taken in an overhead mirror and the image may be reversed and I didn't include names of the artists. (Mouse over for captions in the beginning)

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Daily Painters of Texas

Daily Abstract Painters Gallery

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NANCY STANDLEE ARLINGTON, TEXAS ART FOR SALE

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Sandi D'Alessandro Workshop ~ "Harmony" Acrylic on Yupo Paper by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

"Harmony"
Acrylic on heavy weight full sheet yupo paper, some collage

"Creating the "WOW" in Your Paintings: A Graphic Design Approach to Composition"

This is my today's effort in the Sandi D'Alessandro three day workshop at Artists' Showplace with 24 other artists and I will probably give it a few more "hot licks". I wanted just upper body figures but I think the figure on the right comes off as a full figure with a very large head. For awhile today this person looked like a very disgusted guy saying " I do not want to go to this party dressed as a girl." At the end of the day some of my friends suggested a too high forehead needed a hint of some hair and that helped.
This has been great experimental fun. I didn't have any reference material and was influenced by the painted surface of the yupo and worked intuitively. First we put gloss medium on yupo and painted it with liquid acrylics and scratched and made texture marks. I was so caught up in the process I forgot to take a photo at this point. Sandi said it didn't matter what color we used because we'd probably cover it up anyway and there was not a right or wrong way to do this. Sandi said this is the procedure when you go into the studio and you don't have an idea or know what you want to paint.
We let that dry while we took acid free foam core (I used a 16 x 20 sheet) and trowled on thick white gesso and let dry. Take the dried yupo sheet and begin painting. I turned it all directions to see if any images appeared or ideas. I went with the idea of two figures and began to negative paint around those images and come back and paint positively on the image. The foam core is for the Tuesday's project but to prevent curling I added a light gesso coat on the other side before leaving for the day.
Sandi is a teacher from Hardy, VA. near Roanoke and works with the high school and college, member of N.W.S and A.W.S. and is a very pleasant helpful instructor. Her teaching experience makes her a very good workshop instructor. She also paints on canvas and on board. She provided positive helpful suggestions to each of us when we hit a snag while working on our yupo. It will be fun to see class member's work on Wednesday. I'll make a slide show for you readers.

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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

Daily Painters Marketplace


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

Contact: NancyStandlee@sbcglobal.net

A Watercolor and A Wedding by Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Watercolor Framed
28" x 20"
My daughter's painting is finally framed. I ordered the frame from Frames by Mail where you get it all, frames, mat, hangers, plexi - everything but the wire and you put it together. All you need is the dimensions for the work to be framed and start doing the math on the site and even I can figure it out so I'm sure you can. The actual framing part goes better if you can get some holding help. But the real reason for the post is her wedding, Saturday, November 7, 2009 at the Lone Oak Winery.

The new family

Daughter and Mom

The Girls

Some of the Standlee crew

Combined Crew
and everyone had been patient for photos but now it was silly face time. The weather was beautiful and it was a perfect day for a wedding or a watercolor.

"Small Gifts" an Acrylic Painting by Texas Daily Artist Nancy Standlee

"Small Gifts"
22" x 30" acrylic on paper

In most of the workshops I take there is a small gift from Cheap Joe's. Sometimes there is a white eraser in a clear plastic bag, a 3B pencil with his name on it, a pencil sharpener, a sponge that when wet swells up to mattress size. I love these freebies and use them and look forward to a Joe surprise. In one of my orders I received a little square coaster that is imprinted with one of Cheap Joe's own watercolor images of a red barn, some sheep and trees. I see that he paints trees better than I do. I've become very attached to this coaster and use it to sit my morning cup of coffee on and sorta freak out if it's not around. That early morning sound of my mug hitting the table is just nicer muffled with one of Joe's coasters.
Someday I'll go to Boone and meet Cheap Joe and tell him how much I enjoy his small gifts and his catalogs and most of all ordering his art supplies. I'll tell him I think he's a very lucky man to be able to sit in all of these Boone workshops with all of the famous teachers. But, Joe, for the rest of us please keep sending us these small gifts. I love surprises.
The above painting was done recently in the Lana Grow workshop in Granbury. See blog post HERE.

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

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

Other blogs where I post:

Daily Painters of Texas

Daily Abstract Painters Gallery

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NANCY STANDLEE ARLINGTON, TEXAS ART FOR SALE ACRYLIC

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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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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

Daily Painters Marketplace


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

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Lana Grow Workshop ~ Granbury TX ~ Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Gold Leaf Floral
(This wasn't painted as a floral but it reminds me of a floral.)
10 x 10" Illustration board
This is one of my favorite pieces I did while at the workshop and will probably try some others later. It is very difficult for me to get a good photo of anything with gold in it without it getting a bad glare. In the painting below I lifted up the edge so the painting is not square and the acrylic gloss medium made it shiny.
Abstract Landscape
10 x 10 in. Acrylic on illustration board with tissue paper collage
This is a great technique and Lana had some stunning pieces on a large piece of Strathmore. I didn't get to the workshop with my large piece but I used this 10" to learn the technique. This has lots of gel and gesso from a squeeze bottle for the lines.
Lana with one of her symbol pieces on Strathmore Illustration board 10 x 30. At the end of the post you can find other work in a slide show.

About the Lana Grow workshop:
Two friends, Pat and Marie, told me about the workshop in Granbury, TX. October 19-23, 2009, and I'm so glad I made the effort to go and it was an effort as I came home from the Liz Hill workshop on Sunday evening, unloaded and loaded and drove over early Monday morning. Lana, A.W.S. is an excellent teacher and gives the kind of workshop she says she would want to take and I would recommend this one to anyone who wants to pursue some experimental abstract using acrylic paints. She won me over when she handed out a 3 ring binder of approximately 50 pages filled with wonderful notes about the techniques we'd be covering this week. She and her husband Norm, drove down from Minnesota so she brought lots of work to show us and all kinds of supplies to share.
In many workshops on the last day about 10:00 A.M. the instructor starts packing up and many do not have a demo that day. I could tell you some stories about some of the experiences. This class began on time at 9:00 A. M. and it was push, push all week and because she knew some would need to leave early on Friday and she wanted us to get our "money's worth" she had us all arrive at 8:00 A. M. Friday the last day of the class. Lana was always upbeat and sharing of all of her techniques and if you want to learn about acrylic or abstracts try to take one of her workshops.
Slide show and mouse over for captions:

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

Daily Painters Marketplace



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

Contact: NancyStandlee@sbcglobal.net

Liz Hill Workshop Day 2 and 3 ~ Texas Daily Painter Nancy Standlee

Patricia with Hat
Watercolor, collage, charcoal on hot press 15 x 22 in

See my previous blog post about the Liz Hill workshop and the 3 days I spent in the Houston class where we were encouraged to add anything that will make your figure pieces more exciting. In the upper left corner this piece has some newspaper collage and peeling back of the layers and the hat is collage paper made in a previous workshop.
Patricia (seated)
Watercolor on hot press 15 x 30
One technique we tried on Saturday was to make some large loose shapes before drawing the model. First thing was to paint and get the paper prepared so it could dry and we used charcoal and were instructed to draw with a continuous line which is sometimes difficult and we'd forget. The above 1/2 sheet hot press paper was my attempt. This was an exercise to get us out of the habit of drawing and then painting within the lines as in a coloring book fashion.
In the slide show there are several photos of some of the student's work and just mouse over them for the captions. This was an exciting workshop and I learned several new techniques besides needing more drawing instruction and my concern was - it wasn't long enough. I want to go back so Liz, send me an email when your next 3 day workshop will be as I loved this one.
Contact NancyStandlee@sbcglobal.net