Coker Arboretum, UNC at Chapel Hill

“Spring intensity at Coker Arboretum”
6x9" watecolor

This is one painting that I feel needs little discussion. On my previous post, see a different view of the same vine arbor at Coker Arboretum, located in the heart of campus at the University of North Carolina. I’m giving myself a year to paint Chapel Hill and its surrounding community. Truth be told, I could spend the entire year painting in this lovely arboretum that is managed by the North Carolina Botanical Garden.

Early Spring, Chapel Hill

“A slice of Franklin Street”
7 x 9.5" watercolor


“82 years old and still selling daffodils”
7x 11" watercolor


“Outer wall, Coker Arboretum”
7 x 10" watercolor


“Headed down the arbor”
7 x 11" watercolor

I love this community that is home to possibly the most revered school of higher learning in the southeastern United States, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Provided the students are in agreement, I will be honored to have a show there next year at Frank Porter Graham Student Union. I consider the paintings above warm-up paintings of a series of watercolors I plan to paint of various points of interest on campus and the surrounding community.
I have been to weddings of alumni of the university where groomsmen honor their alma mater by wearing neckties that don the famous Carolina Blue school color. The ties to this university seem never to be broken by those who call themselves “Tar Heels”.

Late afternoon, Whole Foods

“Bursting with Spring”
9 x 6" watercolor

Whole Foods is a market I like to shop more than I care to paint. However, the beautiful display of tulips and other spring-blooming flowers made this scene irresistible. The sign at the top of the building, I have skewed, but what the heck — this is not an architectural rendering! Wish the customers with their carts didn’t move so fast, but I’ve done my best to capture one of them here. Two commissioned paintings took me to Raleigh last Saturday. I squeezed this one in on a side-visit to Quail Ridge Books, in the same center as this market. What a glorious day it was for plein air painting!

Sunday morning, Down East

“Praying for fishermen”
18 x 24" oil on canvas

The struggle that has befallen commercial fishermen on the East coast continues. I am very empathetic with the hard working people in the coastal area of North Carolina known as Down East. For generations they have made their living off the sea. All of a sudden they are forced to compete with fishermen in countries like Mexico and Thailand, people who have a whole different standard of living. On top of that, is their struggle with environmentalists. Regulation upon regulation has been cast upon our commercial fishermen. Most of the fish houses have closed. I’ve had the good fortune to visit and paint two of the last remaining.

With no intention of painting a churchyard or crosses last weekend, I ran across this scene en route to one of my favorite stops on Harkers Island. The plight of commercial fishermen is very much about what’s going on today in Down East. And it’s so much about North Carolinians, the prayingest group of people I have ever come across.

I announced my intention to paint the church’s marquis to one of the parishioners who was hurried to catch the next service. Shortly after, Gary Willis, a deacon of the church, greeted me, inviting me to join the congregation. I thanked him for the invitation, but explained that if I took time away from my painting that I would lose my light; that the crosses are like giant sundials, their shadows changing by the minute. Racing the light is clearly one of the challenges of painting en plein air on a sunny day.

Dine East

“Built for Cape Cod”
18 x 24" oil on canvas

How glorious! Alas! Three consecutive days of plein air painting, this time in the Morehead City, NC area! “Built for Cape Cod” is named for the boats you see here, built in someone’s yard in a coastal area of North Carolina referred to as “Down East” — actually pronounced by the locals as Dine East. They pronounce a long i as oi, and so these people known as “High Tiders” are commonly called Hoi Toiders. I’m not making this up, promise. Sometimes referred to as the Queen’s English, some believe the dialect to be a hold over from Elizabethan times when this part of North Carolina was first settled. It’s a fascinating area, and one that I love to paint.

The skiffs in the painting are going to be sent up to Cape Cod. The man who operates this boat works hails from Massachusetts. When I asked he and his family if he’s accepted there, his Dine East born-and-bred daughter-in-law replied, “We’re trying [to accept him]”. Down East has a tradition of boat building that goes back a couple centuries, and so naturally, I was curious about the intrusion of a boat builder, especially one from “up North”.

Check out the painting below that shows me at work on the painting. I was heavily layered so am not really as fat as I appear here.


Painting skiffs in Down East

Break in the weather

“Busy Saturday”
7 x 9" watercolor

This could be a record for me. I can’t remember when I’ve gone almost two months without getting outdoors to do some plein air painting. It's been a plein air drought if there is such a thing. Since I moved to North Carolina in 2003, this has been the worst of the winters I can recall. A week ago there was a beautiful layer of snow on the ground. Just too bad the chill doesn’t lend itself to painting outdoors. My cut off temperature in the South is 50º. I realize my Minnesota friends might think this pretty wimpy, but they have a dry cold up there that doesn’t cut to the bone like the chill we have in the South. I was advised by a member from a group of painters in Putney, Vermont that body heat wraps can help tremendously. I think I’ll peruse the web and see what’s new out there in the line of body warmers. We’re not quite out of the woods. If any of you can offer helpful hints, I’d love to receive them.

I did the painting above yesterday afternoon after a long pose figure study* at Artspace in Raleigh, N.C. It felt amazingly good to sit down in the sunshine in temps that reached almost 60º. Yay! The scene is one of the corners at Woodburn and Clark Ave. in Cameron Village, Raleigh's first planned community. Cameron Village is best known now as a shopping center, and is the location of The Little Art Gallery, my gallery representation in Raleigh.

* Click Contains Nudity to see the study I did two weeks ago at the same venue. I’ll be posting the study I did yesterday as soon as I’ve taken a photo of it.

Priorities

“Main entrance, Carolina Inn”


“Cameron entrance, Carolina Inn”
9 x 12" watercolors

It’s been forever since I posted any new work here. Most of my energy between August and November went to a 100-day email newsletter featuring 100 paintings for $100 each. Check out Brenda’s Gallery 100 at http://brendabehr.com/works if you are not yet familiar with the newsletter and its offerings.

I woke up Sunday thinking I might just stay in bed. Christmas was behind me, so the pressure was off. Or was it? Within two hours I found myself on the road to Chapel Hill, NC where the temperatures would reach the 50’s for the last time before the beautiful decorations would come down at the charming Carolina Inn. I’d already decided to paint the historic Inn, and had also determined its peak charm is at Christmastime.

I consider these studies for some larger paintings I want to do. I have plenty of photos for back-up, and the observation I did while painting these should give me the information I’ll need later to paint larger ones. The chill in the air, and sitting in partial shade set me at a pace that kept these paintings loose, which I like.

Meanwhile, back at the studio, the amaryllis exploding with blooms was beckoning me. Clicking here will take you to my Hot Off the Easel blog where I've posted the amaryllis blooms that finally had their way with me. So, for a lady who woke up with all the pressure behind her, it took no time at all before I was back in the plein air saddle.