NC Botanical Garden, Chapel Hill Location: Chapel Hill Event Dates: 9/14/2010 - 9/14/2010 Reception: 9/14/2010 • 9am - 12pm
Tuesday, 9am-Noon
The North Carolina Botanical Garden (ncbg.unc.edu) encompasses several acres of display gardens, an education center (with restrooms), a number of natural areas, and extensive trails through a woods with hillsides and a stream. The display gardens include a large paved patio inset with beds of carnivorous plants like pitcher and flytraps, plus many "garden rooms" and beds of interesting and unusual plants, shrubs, and trees, sculptures, and furthest from the entrance, a small log cabin in a fern glen. Be sure to bring your camera!
Gaining admission for us to paint here required submitting a proposal and assuring the "powers that be" that we will use utmost courtesy in the garden spaces. We are allowed to set up and paint only where we will not block and trails and walkways, and of course only in open spaces (not the planting beds).
No food is available. If interested, we could go to lunch at Southern Season's restaurant, the Weathervane. It is about 5 minutes from the botanical garden. Let me know if you would like to do this and I will make a reservation for us.
The garden is located just off Highway 54 in Chapel Hill. It has ample parking, but you will have to walk a short distance from the parking lot to enter the fenced garden area or to access the trails in the woods.
Go to www.ncbg.unc.edu for pictures and directions
SparkCon Street Painting Festival
Event Dates: 9/18/2010 - 9/18/2010
Saturday 9am - 6pm
On September 18th the VAE Plein Air Group will be painting at the SparkCon Street Painting Festival on Fayetteville Street. Choose the time that you would like to paint. The will be a large crowd most of the day to view your work. There will be vendors for food and drink as well as 140 squares of art being chalked by artist on the street! This is a great opportunity to get your work in front of the public. Bring your photobook of current paintings to show interested people. Join the excitement of art in the act of being created.
Contact Rick Bennett if you'd like more information about painting on location during the festival - rbennett16@nc.rr.com.
Located off Kildaire Farm Road approximately 1 mile south of Tryon Road.
Lots of parking; Restrooms available at Stevens Nature Center at the park entry
There are many lunch places nearby at intersection of Tryon and Kildaire Farm Rd.
Hemlock Bluffs is a state nature preserve that is managed by the Town of Cary. The bluffs, with its population of Eastern hemlock, divide the preserve into upland areas with pines, mixed pine-hardwood and oak-hickory woodlands, and the flood plain along Swift Creek. There are many platforms for overlooking interesting pine forest, mixed pine-hardwood, upland oak-hickory, and Swift Creek floodplain habitats. There is a sunny open courtyard near the nature center, shaded trails, and shallow creek water to challenge the plein air painter. Be on the look out for a variety of birds as well. Stay on trails, but do not block trails or bridges with easels.
Willow Oak Farm Riding School is located in scenic Chatham County, in the midst of rolling fields and beautiful sunsets. Check out their website at www.willowoakfarmridingschool.com.