Splotchy Pumpkin

 Setup for painting "Splotchy Pumpkin" -- 10/28/11

"Splotchy Pumpkin" -- oil on canvas 18x24" -- Margie Guyot

We had 2 bouts of sleet in the morning.  It was very gloomy and wet.  Then all of a sudden the clouds moved out about noon and voila -- dazzling sunshine!  Hallelujah!  I knew what I wanted to paint....

Last month I found this wonderful pumpkin in the Garden Center at Home Depot.  It was $8 -- highway robbery! -- but it was just too cool to pass up.  I'd seen other big "Cinderella" type pumpkins before, but none with these green splotches.  It's a big one, too.  Heavy.  I knew it would be a great subject to paint.

As with "Warty Pumpkin" (see previous post), I knew it would be more challenging to set it out on the front lawn to paint, as opposed to setting it on a white cloth.  But the green grass and colored leaves are just too marvelous to leave out!  I guess this would qualify as a "plein air still life". 

Normally I try to limit my canvas sizes in plein air to small, such as 8x10".  But this big pumpkin just had to be painted on a larger format!  Scrounging around in the back room, I managed to find a nice 18x24" blank, gallery-wrapped canvas.  

All of us "up north" artists are hoping for sales in this wretched economy, but I've decided to just paint what I just LOVE.  I don't know how many people would want to buy a painting of a pumpkin, but I just know that someday people will be fighting over them!