Another big steer

This time I painted a white steer, probably a Charolais with a bit of Brahma in his background. 

30x30 oil on canvas

He was in the same group of steers as this colorful one I painted a few months ago.

30x30 oil on canvas

When I propped the finished paintings against the fence to photograph them, I was pleased to see that the grass in the paintings blends right in with the real stuff on the ground!

I think they make a nice pair!

Inspiration for Art in the Garden

With beautiful spring weather finally here and plenty of April showers continuing in May, I can find inspiration for art right outside my back door!

This clematis vine is in full bloom. At last count, there were 22 flowers

and they're HUGE! This might be a painting to try soon.

On my patio, there's another variety. Clematis is showy but easy to grow. The plants need a trellis or something to climb. They are best planted near a foundation since they like their roots cool. This one is next to my patio so the roots hide there.

Coreopsis has a profusion of bright golden blooms that nod gently in the breeze.

Several years ago, my watercolor instructor gave me this ruffled peach iris.

Cheri gave me this deep dark purple iris too. 

Her watercolor paintings of iris are gorgeous, just like the flowers she shared.

I love columbine! It reseeds itself and surprises me all over the garden. I once had several varieties but the bees have cross-pollenated them so they all look alike now. 

My favorite flower in the garden is this red peony. It's always the first peony to bloom and looks wonderful in an arrangement. I see another painting here!

The herbs in my porch box are doing well too. They might even inspire me to cook! This year I planted parsley, thyme, and dill to use in this herbed chicken salad recipe from the Stone Gable blog. We tried it for my granddaughter's christening party and it is so good! The puff pastry cups are cute too.

Speaking of my new little granddaughter, she's coming to visit this week. I decided that was a good-enough reason to spruce up the patio a bit so I sprayed all the wrought iron with black Rustoleum paint and ordered some new Sunbrella cushions from Home Depot.

Do you think she'll notice?

The Original Four Seasons of Tobacco

Many years ago I saw a brochure featuring a group of drawings or paintings called "The Twelve Months of Tobacco."  The artist, Toss Chandler, was commissioned by Philip Morris, Inc. to depict the tasks necessary to raise a crop of tobacco from planning it in January to selling it in December.  I looked for prints of the series but never found them, so when I first started painting, I decided to try to paint something similar. Not wanting to do twelve paintings, I cut it down to the "four seasons of tobacco."

"The Four Seasons of Tobacco"
four 16x20 oil on canvas

Over the years as my skill as an artist has improved, I have repainted the series and even added a fifth painting. However, the painting below has only been retouched. There is a reason for that... 

"Tobacco Auction"
16x20 oil on canvas

At the time I painted the tobacco auction, I was taking art lessons from a wonderful portrait painter. She commands portrait fees in the four and five figure category, depending on the size of her finished work. The auction painting was the first time I'd tried to paint faces; they're so difficult! My teacher felt sorry for me and offered to paint Pa's face so it would actually look like him. She did a beautiful job! I was so excited to show it to Pa. I had a painting that was partially done by a master portrait artist!

He took one look at the painting and said, "My chin doesn't really look that bad, does it? Take it back and ask her to fix my chin!" So there I was, taking a portrait that my teacher had painted for free back to a portrait painter who gets big bucks for her work!

When I told her what Pa had said, she laughed. "Men are so vain!" she said as she made him look ten years younger. Pa was one happy man! And needless to say, I'm not going to attempt to repaint that one until I, too, become a master portrait artist... and I don't see that happening anytime soon!

In these posts, you can see the four paintings I painted recently, replacing three of those above, and read about the process of growing burley. To learn more about how tobacco was sold, click the last link.

Planting and Plowing

Cutting Tobacco

Hanging Tobacco in the Barn

Stripping Tobacco
The Tobacco Auction

Planting and Plowing

"Setting Tobacco"
16x20 oil on canvas

Burley tobacco is planted or set in late May.

The seedlings are grown from seed in a greenhouse where the styrofoam trays are floated in water.

A tobacco setter is pulled through the plowed field behind a tractor. There are seats for four men and a tank for water.

The setter has two rotating wheels with slots.

As the wheels turn, the men take turns placing a seedling in each slot.

They have to work quickly to place each seedling at just the right place so that it will be mechanically planted at the correct depth. Otherwise, the plant will not live.

As the machine plants each seedling, it gets a squirt of water with fertilizer.

Up and down the field, the setting crew works

planting two rows at a time.

If a seedling doesn't live, it has to be replaced the hard way... by hand!

The plants grow quickly. By early June, it is time to plow.

Plowing is a slow and tedious job. Pa is very picky and usually does all the plowing himself.

He adjusts the plow so it cultivates the plants at the right depth.

The crop will be fertilized, sprayed for disease, and topped to prevent suckers. By late August, it will be 5-6 feet tall and ready to be cut.

Burley Tobacco Harvest

"Cutting Tobacco"
16x20 oil on canvas

Burley tobacco is ready to harvest in late August, the hottest part of the summer! Because the leaves are fragile and break easily, the crop has to be cut by hand.

Workers use a small knife that looks like a hatchet.

Wooden sticks about 4-feet in length are distributed through the field.

A metal cone-shaped "tobacco spike" is placed on top of the stick to provide a sharp point.

Then stalks of tobacco are forced over the spike, splitting the stalk.

Five stalks are placed on each stick.

The process is called "spiking" tobacco.

The tobacco is usually left in the field for three days to wilt and dry out.
Then it is loaded onto trucks and hung in a barn to cure.

Hanging Tobacco in the Barn

"Housing Tobacco"
16x20 oil on canvas

Burley tobacco is a very labor-intensive crop. The harvest is all done by hand. Because the leaves are so brittle, it can't be mechanized. The plants are cut down using a special tobacco knife that looks like a small hatchet. Then, using a sharp, cone-shaped, metal spike, five stalks are placed on a four-foot tobacco stick. The spiked tobacco is left in the field for several days so it will wilt and be easier to handle. Then it's loaded on trucks to be hung in barns.

The trailer loads of tobacco are pulled into the barn. Tobacco barns are designed with rows of wooden tiers about three feet apart, just the right width to hang the sticks of tobacco. 

Then the sticks of tobacco are handed up to the waiting men

who hang them on the tiers

or pass them on up to the guys above them.

Up and up they go,

over and over again,

all the way to the top!

The tobacco will stay in the barn for six to eight weeks to cure. The leaves turn golden brown. On damp, rainy days in October, it will be taken down, stripped from the stalks and packed in bales of various grades. 

"Up, Up, Up"
18x36 oil on canvas

Winter Work: Stripping Tobacco

I've just finished these two paintings of workers on our farm preparing burley tobacco for market. The process is called "stripping" since the leaves are stripped from the stalk and sorted into grades.

"Winter Work"
16x20 oil on canvas

The painting above will hang over Pa's desk along with four others that tell the story of growing burley. The painting below will be a gift to the worker I painted.

"Stripping Tobacco"
16x20 oil on canvas

Several years ago on another blog I detailed the process of stripping tobacco. Here is an exert from that post:

October 20, 2009

Yesterday was a foggy October morning so I ventured out with my camera...

crossed over the fence where I discovered a sparkly spider web,

and headed up the path to the tobacco barn...

where I got to watch some G-rated "strippers."

Before you get too excited, I should tell you that the process of removing the leaves from the stalks is called stripping tobacco.

Back in August when the tobacco was hung in the barn, it was a yellowish green.  After two months or so in the barn, the leaves have turned a golden brown.

On damp, foggy mornings, tobacco takes on moisture or "comes in order" and becomes pliable enough to be taken down without crumbling. It's carefully stacked onto wagons and carried to the stripping room.

Pa and his workers remove the leaves from the stalks.

They sort the leaves into four grades according to color and stalk position.

Each worker pulls off a different type of leaves and passes the stalk down the line.

They work under the watchful eye of their supervisor, Kate.

The piles of leaves are carried to specially-made baling boxes and stacked according to grades.

When a bin is full, the leaves are compressed into a bale with an air jack.

Kate finds the finished bales useful for scratching her back.

The bales are carefully tagged according to grade and quality.

Out go the empty stalks! They will be spread on the pasture land as organic fertilizer.

Tobacco has been sold in bales for only the past twenty years or so. Before that, it was stripped into bundles called "hands" of tobacco. While at the barn, I asked Pa to tie up a couple of the old-fashioned hands to hang up on the porch.

He gathered the leaves in his hand and carefully arranged them.

Then he took a single leaf and wrapped it around the stem ends of the leaves.

Finally, he tucked the wrapper leaf between the others in the bundle to secure it.

The hands of tobacco were artfully arranged on those big wooden tobacco baskets that are often found in antique shops today. In November and December, the crop was sold at auction in big tobacco warehouses located in almost every town. It was an exciting time of year for farm families. Now the crop is simply delivered to tobacco companies at receiving stations... the romance of a bygone era is only a memory.

I'm linking this post to Alphabe-Thursday at Jenny Matlock's blog. W is for Winter Work!