After two weeks of computer trouble and finally buying a new one, I'm ready to begin a combination of writing and art posts. I had painted a front cover for my first book, The Journey, but I decided it was too busy to work well with the title and information on the back cover. The scene was of my grandmother walking uphill from a creek that was nestled in a valley, where the wagon train had stopped for the night, surrounded by pines and cedars. She carried a bucket of water and a shotgun, unaware that a grey wolf on a hillside behind her was making his way down to drink. I studied what I should have left off, and when I finished the manuscript for my next book, I knew what to paint.
On the cover of The Winds of September, Judith Hodge stands in a prairie field with her home, a Texas soddy, in the background. In order to keep her sanity, about once a week, Judith puts on her best dress and goes for a walk by herself. I wanted to capture here the effect of constant prairie winds. Notice how her dress and sash blow backward, and how the tall grass bends in the same direction, the underside dark with highlights on top. I constantly strive for contrast when I paint, and here, the sky color reflects off her arms, and is even picked up in the ground cover. More about Judith in my next post.