Atrium / hallway

“Black and White Hallway” — SOLD
9.5 x 6.5" watercolor

Here’s the third and final painting of the Carolina Inn that I am sharing with you this month. Subscribers to my email newsletter (click here if you are interested in subscribing) will read how this painting came to be sold and how it led to two commissioned paintings. This hallway, appropriately named Black and White Hallway, at the Carolina Inn is one of my favorite views of the Inn’s charming interior. I am so glad now that I seized the opportunity to paint this, as well as my two preceding paintings of the Inn.

A lobby to paint

“Entryway, Carolina Inn” —SOLD
6.5 x 9.5" watercolor

This may appear to be a welcoming scene, but it was quite daunting for me to ask permission to set up on location to paint it. The walls of the lobby at the Carolina Inn are painted a warm yellow, and the carpets, although not red, reek of Southern charm and hospitality. It was the people I saw roaming the halls of the Inn that I found intimidating. You get the feeling most might likely be quite spoiled, used to only the best, and that they may just find some artist with her nose to the ground painting, an aberration of the way things are done [at the Inn]. This did not keep me from asking permission to paint there. Having promised the managers I’d be extremely careful by attempting to keep everything squeaky clean, they allowed me to paint there.

Sweet dreams

“Turned down turn-down service”
6.5 x 9.5" watercolor

On a recent business trip to Chapel Hill, I was given the opportunity to stay at the historic Carolina Inn. My Dec. 29, 2009 blog post, “Priorities”, features two paintings of the exterior of this luxurious Inn. “Turned down turn-down service” depicts the room that greeted me at the end of two intense days of plein air painting. This is the third time I’ve painted my overnight accommodations. I mentioned Van Gogh’s bedroom painting in my April 13 post. His paintings of his bedroom in Arles are part of my inspiration. Perhaps a college drawing assignment to “draw (or paint) a corner of a room” is another source for the idea. Moreover, when I’m on the road overnight, I often paint until the sun goes down, eat late, then think, I may not see this room again; I need to paint it. Through the weekend, I’ll be posting other paintings I did while staying at the exceedingly charming Carolina Inn.

Twofer

If you’re a subscriber to my email newsletter (you can be by clicking here), you’ll recognize the large twisted tree in the midground. I featured this legendary tree in my Gallery 100 newsletter last fall. Davie Poplar on the north quad of campus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Frisbee at Davie Poplar” is a painting I worked on simultaneously while painting “Spring at Carolina”. See the latter by clicking Hot Off the Easel, my web blog.
My calligraphic watercolors are a two-step process. First, a very wet, soft background must be painted; then, a hard line calligraphic treatment is sketched on top. The base coat must be completely dry before applying the calligraphic lines. So ultimately, it benefits one to work on two paintings at a time. In this case, simply by turning around, I found two completely different scenes that I felt more than worthy of painting.

“Frisbee at Davie Poplar”, 6.5 x 9.5" watercolor

“The Boudoir”

“The Boudoir”
7 x 9" watercolor

Okay, not exactly La Chambre à coucher (“The Bedroom”) painted by Van Gogh, but it’s my room at The Inn on Oak Street where I stayed recently during a Carol Marine workshop in Jacksonville, Florida. I drove nine hours south to Jacksonville, then sat down and proceeded to paint the room that I refer to as “The Darwin Room”. The plant with spike-like leaves on the left side of the room is a Snake Plant. I am unable right now to find research to back this up, but seems I once read that Darwin compared the leaves on this plant to “mother-in-law’s tongue”; thereby nicknaming the plant.

See a plein air painting of the exterior of the charming Inn on my other blog by clicking Hot Off the Easel.


“The Sunroom”
7 x 9.5" watercolor

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.