A Late Summer Morning

A Late Summer Morning
12x16" watercolor

I'm finding it difficult to finish paintings any more - but here is one that has taken me a little while to do. The lowering light situation afforded by the season has really been noticeable this year. We put up some new bamboo blinds in the living room and it has made some dramatic changes in our living space. I just couldn't help but do this image as I captured it with my camera a few weeks back.

New Page - A Visual Life History

A really old piece of my Junkbox series I just scanned. I've started this new page on this here blog that has given me reason to take photos of really old stuff and to start this project of scanning old slides of work I did through the years. It is a lot self indulgent - but also a lot of fun. I have become obsessed! It is a work in progress and will be finished some day I suppose - but now I'm sorta savoring the memories...

Parkway Outing

So after a really long day of meetings (during which I'm writing a possible new page to this here blog - my visual life history) as this Fall semester is about to start, and I'm down stairs in the studio looking through some really old drawings and paintings and old (old) slides when my favorite little missy comes down and says lets do something! So we go on a quick outing to the parkway and take pictures - we'll do this again the next time we get bored.

The Beauty of Edisto Island

Edisto Beach, SC
12x16" watercolor

OK - so this will be the last post of the highlights of my painting this summer. All the others are posted on my Flickr Photostream (click on the right to see them ifin ya want). This painting is obviously based on a photo. Originally miss Hannah is walking one of our dogs - who is omitted in this composition - which now I think makes this painting look odd (the way her wrist bends to hide her hand in forshortening - without the benefit of a dog somewhere in the image to let one know why it looks this way)...

Botany Bay, Edisto Island

Ken at Botany Bay
12x16" watercolor

This May we explored Botany Bay for the first time. A former plantation of thousands of acres, it is now a state park. I just couldn't resist painting my friend Ken on the beach with all the sea shells (that are not to be collected) - and trees that are still making a stand versus the encroaching ocean. You can even buy T-shirts now with these trees depicted on them - rather iconic of this park.

Hurricane House Edisto

Hurricane House Sunroom
12x16" watercolor

This is everyone's favorite room at Hurricane House. No doubt in my mind.

Pink Number two

Pink Number 2
12x16" watercolor

This past May - Pink tells me that she doesn't like my first attempt at her portrait (showed her a print). I asked if I could try again and she looks at me like "why bother"? But - here is a second attempt. I'm thinking of showing her this one in October - but I'm afraid she might start to thinking that I'm stalking her or something

Long Time No Post

Mom and Me
15x22" watercolor on Kilamanjaro white 140 lb.

Did you ever get stuck on a piece? That's what has happened to me. I decided to do a piece of my mom and me based on this tiny photo that originally included my three brothers in it (that facebook retro-you image thingy that we all did back in January made me think of it) . In the reference photo I am about one and a half - originally she was holding the newborn KB - my only younger brother in her lap in her right arm. It was one of my absolute favorite photos of my mom - who went on to bring to this world three girls beyond the scope that my source photo indicates. This was a photo that just began to hint at the indescribable person who my mother was, or the relationship with her that I developed in her lifetime. I had a difficult time with this piece - not only that the over-exposed nature of the tiny photo gave little to no information when you are expanding the image to half-sheet size...but I couldn't help myself. It's been over five years since my mother's passing and I just got stuck - I couldn't finish this piece - like I didn't know how to.

So I resorted to what I usually do during the winter and began a lot of reading. It's easier and my studio space is cool during the winter. That's the only excuses that I can offer - but now I find that I am itching to be back into my studio routine again. It's a glorious spring out there so here I go.

Art Hearts for Haiti

Laure Ferlita (click on above logo for link) has started a project to aid the relief efforts being done for Haiti. I found out about this project through Ann and Krista Meister - it felt like this was something that I could do beyond the contributions that we have already done.

Besides, it was a lot of fun to spend a day in the studio doing some of the mixed media kind of things that I used to do. The requested scale is the art trading card size. This was new to me too, so I approached it in the first way I knew how:

By doing nine of them on one page in hopes of getting one that would be decent. So eight of them look like this:

And the one I chose to send to Laure is this one:

So, hey, this art card thingy seems to be OK. Ann has already talked to me about setting up an Etsy shop and going to town with that. Maybe I can do such a thing after all.

Corsica

Corsica
12x16" watercolor on 140lb. Kilamanjaro

So here is my contribution to Bill Guffey's Virtual Paintout this month. Corsica must be a beautiful place to live. For my search I stayed close to the coast - I think it being winter and all. We had another round of ice yesterday and it was so sad to see the same trees bowing down once again. Their spirits seemed so burdened that it really affected me on my way to work. But, that's why we do art I suppose, perhaps at times a form of escapism. I hear a lot of artists say that they do art because they have to. Maybe that is the only real reason to do so.

Watercolor Show TV Interview

So here it is finally. This interview was shown last week on our very local TV station concerning my work for a watercolor show at our Community Arts Council. I've changed this video to a link - because what I had played automatically and that became irritating! So maybe this will work better.

Elizabeth Cotten

Elizabeth Cotten
22x30" watercolor on 300 lb. Arches coldpress.

Elizabeth Cotten was originally from North Carolina and had a remarkable story. She essentially taught herself to play guitar after an older brother left home with his homemade banjo. She was so very important because she remembered the music from her youth - the folk songs of itinerant musicians, community gatherings and "church music" of a time before recordings of this genre, so she became a direct conduit of a music that was transformed and passed down from the earliest of days in the south. The church told Elizabeth that worldly music was sinful, so she quit playing for 40 years.

It wasn't until she got a chance job working as a domestic for the famous Seeger family that she was "discovered" and then promoted. So her professional career started when she was well into her 60's. Her song Freight Train was her most famous, being covered by the likes of Peter, Paul and Mary during the folk revival movement 0f the 50's and 60's. Elizabeth was known for her "upside-down" style of playing a right-handed guitar left-handed, a style that made her music and her "Cotten-picking" fingerings quite unique. By all accounts that I have read Elizabeth was a spirited genius who would warn one to be right with God, but one who would love to play you a song.

Watercolor Show

Well as usual there are last minute things to do for a show that you did not anticipate. This time it was really good though - as I was literally ready to walk out the door to deliver my work to the Jones House - our local Community Arts Center here in Boone, the art director calls and asks to speak to Ann for help! Seems the show scheduled to run concurrent with mine had canceled out at the very last minute. Turns out that Ann had enough pieces (of course) for a show in this person's place. But what it meant was a day and a half of last minute framing. Thank goodness Cheap Joe's had what we needed to pull this off (he is just down the road from us). So, as the sign above says, a Double Nemcosky Exhibits event for the town of Boone.

There was a nice turn out as the weather cooperated for the opening reception (it was postponed from the week before as we were experiencing tundra weather). Everyone present exclaimed how tall my daughter was and enjoyed seeing some new work from Ann and yours truly. I've been holding this post because I did some local TV interviews talking about the work - but have been very impatiently waiting for them to be posted on their web site so I can embed them in a blog post. Eventually they will be there I'm told so I have to wait.

In the mean time I've started a new semester and that always brings the studio to an abrupt halt (rewriting syllabi, too many meetings, making copies and advising students). The first week did go well though - I think I have some good classes this go round. I did manage to finally finish Elizabeth Cotten (Piedmont blues series), and am still fascinated with virtually touring Corsica for Bill Guffey's Virtual Paint Out challenge blog (he got a wonderful plug on Katherine Turrell's Art of the Landscape blog - and she featured one of my pieces too!). So, in many ways I'm back and I plan to resume commenting on your wonderful blogs and Flickr groups I promise - I've have been looking.

One wall in my exhibit. Check out Ann's blog to see her work in her show.

Sea Six Cottage

Sea Six Cottage
11x15" watercolor on 140 lb. Kilamanjaro

This was a piece that I did a year ago this past October - it was one of those paintings that was framed and put into a show before I had the time to take a picture of it. I really liked this little piece so when I was swapping out frames for the next show I photographed it. Just wanted to see it up on the blog.

I love the porch of this rented cottage, and just sitting there watching people bicycle by while listening to the ocean waves a block away. Now that it's winter and the temp hasn't gone above 15 F for a week makes this a more special memory. That and the fact that we went at that time for my daughter's birthday - she has grown to love Edisto Island.

A Young Lady Sketching

A Young Lady Sketching
10x14" watercolor on 140 lb. Kilamanjaro white.

I think I have been thinking about this past summer a lot here lately. Ann took a photo of our daughter sketching next to Bass Lake right outside of Blowing Rock, NC. I always loved this photo and kept a little printout of it pinned to the wall of my studio. So here's a quick little watercolor sketch of her (I've been needing to get back to work!) based on that photo and warm memories of our outing last May or June. Stay warm and happy 2010 everybody.

Framing Away

Well, having survived two winter storms, one with a lot of snow and then there was a lot of ice. My daughter and I spent a lot of time outdoors playing in the snow for days. But the ice storm was other worldly - put our county in a state of emergency because of falling trees and power outages and the like. I hope you all had a great holiday. We did, but was in the dark for a while! Anyway, I've been in the studio framing as opposed to painting (and reading a lot), as I have a show of watercolors going up on Monday (our local Arts Council gallery here in Boone). It gives me the chance to put together a show of new works so I'm psyched. There's always something about seeing the work in frames and up on a wall in a gallery setting that is rewarding in its own right. I've got plenty of ideas for new paintings but they are somewhat on hold - having too much fun otherwise!

Ken Painting

Ken Painting
12x16" watercolor on 300 lb. Arches Aquarelle coldpress.

This is the second Thanksgiving holiday portrait I wanted to do, this being of our friend Ken. As I mentioned below on my wife's portrait, Ken has been our friend for many years and has become my watercolor buddy. Pictured here is what we have been doing over Thanksgiving break for a while now, sitting around the table painting pictures (outside of the usual activities such as parade watching, cooking and hunting down this year's Christmas tree). Actually we've been doing this three times a year, as he meets us on the beach a couple of trips and the routine is much the same. You know you are blessed when you have such a friend - he has been like an uncle to our daughter.

Pte. 73, Mexico City

Pte. 73, Mexico City
12z16" watercolor on 300 lb. Arches coldpress

Ahh, finally finished with this month's Virtual Paintout challenge, Mexico City. This city is so vast that I took a very long time searching. I came up with about six compositions once I decided that my painting would be about color. Mexico City seems to be a lot about color - and people. So many people that that became a secondary decision - trying to find people doing interesting things or in interesting poses on the street. This is just one of several images that I really liked - I think here because of the two dogs that are just interacting with one another. The young person seemed to fit into the overall composition, but I liked the buckets that she was carrying.

A Woman Sketching

A Woman Sketching
12x16 Watercolor on 300 lb. Arches Aquarelle block.

OK, so I took a couple of photos of my wife and a dear friend sketching and painting during the Thanksgiving holiday - for the purpose of doing a painting of each of them painting. Ken is a friend who comes to spend every Thanksgiving with us (a tradition that started in New York many many years ago). I met him when my wife and I got together back in the ole school days (so I married into him). He is a senior interior designer for a major architectural firm in Washington, DC. Besides his day job he is an excellent photographer and thru the years has become my watercolor buddy.

Of the two paintings I wanted to start with doing a portrait of my wife (naturally). At the same time I was looking (lurking) at the challenge blog, Following the Masters (AutumnLeaves participates in that challenge and has a link so it's easy for me to lurk often). Well I decided to try the FTM challenge at the same time (finally). We had this old oriental rug rolled up down in the basement, and I had this coastal South Carolina map up in my studio, so the only real invention was the tile floor in the kitchen (we have oak floors). The biggest challenge to me as I saw it was creating the strong directional light that is associated with much of Vermeer's work. Vermeer has always always been one of my favorite artists. There are not too many of his pieces that exist in this world - that gives them even more a gem-like quality.

Blue Heron, Edisto Island

Blue Heron, Edisto Island
12x16" watercolor on 140 lb. Kilamanjaro block.

This image is based on a photo I took in October down in Edisto. My daughter and I went exploring down the side street our rental was on, knowing that there was a lake before we got to the expansive marshes behind Edisto Beach area. As we walked up to the lake we must have spooked a Great Blue Heron that was hiding in the reeds - so we got to see this majestic bird fly off right in front of us. As many times as I have seen this it always takes my breath. This was a first for my daughter so I was especially exuberant. On the opposite side of the road there was a heavily overgrown feeder canal and in there we immediately saw a second heron - I was able to snap off a shot with the camera.