Florida Artists Group

Artist Bio:

Melissa Miller Nece is known internationally as a colored pencil artist. Her enthusiasm and humor have made her a favorite speaker for arts groups, and she has inspired many others to try colored pencils through her classes and workshops. She has been on the Advisory Council for Prismacolor, and her drawings have also been used in advertising and promotional materials for Derwent pencils and Legion Paper. She wrote a step-by-step article on a technique she developed that will be published in the fall of 2012 in The Artist’s Magazine.

Melissa is a Ten Year Merit Signature Member of and Ways and Means Director for the Colored Pencil Society of America, and Past President of CPSA District Chapter 113. She is also a Signature Member and Board member of the Miniature Artists of America, member and past board member of both the Miniature Art Society of Florida and the Professional Association of Visual Artists, and a member of the Florida Artists Group. She twice received grants from the Pinellas County Cultural Affairs Department (formerly Pinellas County Arts Council), in 2000 and 2008.

Melissa has a BFA from Lake Erie College and has been teaching drawing, colored pencil, and oil and acrylic painting at the Dunedin Fine Art Center since 1990. She has also taught college level graphic design and worked in commercial art. An award winner in international and regional shows, she has in turn served as a juror or judge for numerous shows and competitions. Her artwork is in many corporate and private collections. It has also been featured in CPSA Signature Showcase, Modern Masters of Miniature Art in America, Creative Colored Pencil Portraits, The Best of Colored Pencil Volumes 2, 3, and 5, Creative Colored Pencil, Portrait Inspirations, The Best of Portrait Painting and American Artist and Drawing Highlights magazines.

Artist's Statement:

Water – elemental, essential, powerful. We need it to live, but too much can destroy. It’s beautiful in its many natural forms, from gentle lapping ripples to crashing waves, lazy river, roaring waterfall or peaceful lake. We are drawn to it, to play by it, in it or on it, and to contemplate it, to appreciate its beauty. Constant, yet constantly changing, it is a source and symbol of renewal.

The place by the water that we call a beach is also a stage for human activity. When there, we observe countless little plays, fragments of dramas and comedies acted out by characters in colorful costumes, in lighting that might be dramatic, bright and cheerful, or soft and subtle. In my drawings, I aim to capture those myriad scenes, bits and pieces of dramatic activity to be filled in from our own experience, by our own interpretations. We observe, and in our memories we hear the steady rhythm of the waves, the laughter of children and screech of the gulls, we smell the sunscreen and salt air, we feel the hot roughness of the sand. We are back at the water’s edge.

My beach drawings are based on photos. Casual human gestures and saltwater waves must be frozen in time and saved before I can draw them in loving detail. But even when I set out to paint or draw on location, when I go looking for something beautiful in nature to inspire me, I seem to always find myself drawn to the water’s edge.

Selected Exhibits and Awards:

International Colored Pencil Exhibitions, Colored Pencil Society of America, 11 acceptances, 1993 - 2011 (1993 Artistic Merit Award; 2002 Award for Excellence; 2007 Award for Excellence)
“Explore This!” CPSA Exhibitions: Online, 2010 and 2011 Awards for Excellence; Stuart, FL
              2003 Friends of CPSA Award
Annual International Miniature Art Shows, Miniature Art Society of Florida, 2002 – 12
              2002 (1st Place, Drawing & Pastel); 2003 (Honorable Mention, Figure)
              2004 (3rd Place, Human Figure), 2007 (1st Place, Drawing & Pastel)
              2008 (1st Place, Human Figure), 2012 (2nd Place, Drawing)
Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers Society of Washington, DC, Annual International
              Exhibition of Fine Art in Miniature, Washington, DC, 2006, 2007,
              2009 (Honorable Mention, Drawing), 2010 (2nd Place, Drawing), 2011 (2nd Place, Drawing)
Autumn Artfest, Live Oak (FL) Artists Guild, 2000 (2nd place), 2004 (Honorable Mention),
              2005 (Judge's Choice), 2006 (1st Place), 2008 (3rd Place), 2010 (3rd Place & Peoples’ Choice)
              2011 (Best of Show)
Florida Artists Group Annual Exhibitions, 1997 – 2012; 2 Best of Show and Elizabeth Morse Genius awards               2001, 2006, 2009
World Federation of Miniaturists, 3rd Worldwide Exhibition, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
              2004 (Judge’s Award of Excellence); 4th Worldwide, Tasmania, Australia, 2008,
              5th Worldwide, Moscow, Russia, 2012

SELECTED ARTS FESTIVAL AWARDS:        
Out of the Blue Festival of Art, Clearwater, FL 2004 (Award of Merit), 2005 (Honorable Mention) 2006 (Award of Distinction)
Lake Wales Art Show, Lake Wales, FL, 1996, 1997 (Award of Distinction), 2003 (Award of Distinction)
Palm Harbor Arts, Crafts & Music Festival, Palm Harbor, FL, 1994 (Award of Distinction); 1995 (Festival T-shirt); 1996 (Honorable Mention); 1997 (Award of Merit); 2002 (Honorable Mention)        
Art Harvest, Dunedin, FL, 1993 - 97, 1996 (Award of Distinction)
Images in Art, Ocala, FL, 1994 - 97 (1994 & 96, Awards of Honor, Purchase Awards)
Mainsail Arts Festival, St. Petersburg, FL, 1994 - 97, 1996 (Award of Merit)
Mt. Dora Arts Festival, Mt. Dora, FL, 1996 (Merit Award), 1997
                 
OTHER EXHIBITIONS INCLUDE:
“Water’s Edge” one person show, Pasco Hernando Community College, New Port Richey, 2009
Florida Museum for Women Artists, Deland, Inaugural Exhibition, 2009
Invitational Exhibitions, Ormond Memorial Museum, Ormond Beach, 2002, 2008 and 2011
“Between Sand and Sky,” one person show, Dunedin Fine Art Center, 2002
“Tight Focus” one person show, Dunedin Fine Art Center, 1996