simple hours

Simple Hours

watercolor

10 x 14 inches

©Ann Thompson Nemcosky

available

When hiking along the Blue Ridge Parkway in these mountains you sometimes come upon a setting that suggests that particular spot was once more cultivated than it is now. Maybe a farm was once there, or a cabin with a garden that is long gone over into wildness again. This is one of those places, with a small stand of apple trees left alone out on a hillside, reminiscent of a more simple time long ago.

where this road goes

Where This Road Goes

watercolor

10 x 14 inches

©Ann Thompson Nemcosky

available

I have been making larger paintings recently and really enjoying the freedom that a bigger composition provides. I find bigger brushes filled with watery pigment very satisfying somehow. This one is a quarter sheet size watercolor paper which makes for a longer format than what I typically would paint. And that creates challenges in the way I handle composition. A vertical format such as this allows for more distance, which is what I was hoping for with this scene. Far away mountains and a meadow at your feet. And those blue flowers? I don't know, except that they seemed the right sort of whimsy to add to the scene.

only what matters

Behind Pompano

watercolor

6 x 8 inches

©Ann Thompson Nemcosky

This painting is inspired by a view of a small canal that runs behind Pompano Street on Edisto Beach, SC. It is a scene that I have attempted to paint several times yet was never satisfied with the result. I was trying to say too much with too many details. The heavy stillness of that lowcountry air with the quiet water that rises with the tide eluded all of my previous attempts. Now finally, by simplifying the elements in the scene, I have a painting that captures what I was after and by now it is a scene that I know very well!

Coneflowers

watercolor

6 x 8 inches

©Ann Thompson Nemcosky

By contrast, this painting was one that came about rather quickly and effortlessly. Although I have painted the coneflowers from our garden in the past, I usually fussed about with them looking for a different, more literal result. Here I went straight in with paint with no preliminary sketching. I have found I am usually more successful getting what I am after painting flowers this way as I am better able to express the freshness that is flowers.

With both paintings it was the stripping down the subject to just the essentials that provided me with the best success. Yes, there is a lesson to be learned here.

breezy

By The Sea

watercolor

8 x 10 inches

©Ann Thompson Nemcosky

This painting is intended as a study for a larger work. The image comes from the Golden Asters that grow right up near the beach. The painting was an experiemnt in creating a method for communicating the tangled mess that is these flowers all the while keeping that breezy beach feeling.

Red Geranium on Blue Chair

Red Geranium on Blue Chair

watercolor

11 x 14 inches

©Ann Thompson Nemcosky

A blue chair sits on our little side porch and is our prop for seasonal decorations. In summer it's a potted flower, this year a bright red geranium. I love when the morning light of summer streams onto the little porch making patterns of shadow dance across the side of the house there. When I was thinking about making a painting from this image I imagined all sorts of ways to approach it. I thought about including marks of drawing, perhaps abstracting that scroll of the plant stand in the corner, adding pattern possibly with stenciled shapes, and on and on. In the end I just painted, and enjoyed finding the washy shadows and light filled leaves with my paint brush.