artist in the south

"those cotton fields"  12'x16' pastel on UART 400

It has been awhile since I have posted on my blog. I had to put a new operating system on my laptop. Since I'm not that great on the computer, it has taken me awhile to figure out! The holidays are over and the new year has begun and I am back in my studio. Living in the south, I have always been fascinated with the cotton fields. While down in Alabama for Christmas, I took some photos of the cotton fields and used them as references for some paintings.  Even in the winter, these fields are appealing to me. I started out with doing some small quick paints., not spending more than 20 minutes on each.

5"x7" quick pastel

5"x7" quick paint

I also did a sketch in my sketch book.

in my sketch book

Then I chose the pastels I would use in the painting, adding a few along the way. I try to keep my sticks limited to about 20.

underpainting

For this painting I decided to use a violet Creta color stick with an alcohol wash for the underpainting. I worked it like a drawing, then washing it in with the alcohol and a brush. I used a blue Nupastel for the sky and washed that in with the alcohol also. I wanted to add some more texture, so I added some clear gesso where the grasses and cotton stalks were over top of the Cretacolor drawing. Then I went in with the pastel lightly putting down  layers of pastel.

The cotton fields are so much a part of southern history and there are still many fields today. Machines are used today to pull the cotton from the stalks. I was surprised to see how much cotton is actually left on the stalks after wards.