One of the best trips I have taken was to Antarctica. After a rolling crossing of the Drake Passage with seas up to 48 feet and wind gusts up to 108 knots, our arrival at the continent was greeted by clear skies and crystal water. The light was the purest I have ever seen with a clarity that is hard to describe.
I want this painting to imbue a sense of place and the beauty of this continent.
For this piece I am doing something different in the preparation. In my paintings I use a light turpentine wash with a touch of yellow ochre over my drawing. To try and capture the unique light in Antarctica I thought I might be fighting the underlying warm wash the whole time. So, here my turpentine wash was a mixture of cerulean blue, ultramarine blue deep, and paynes gray.
Our small 100 passenger ship was able to give us two continental landings from zodiacs. The vastness of this place was evident. We climbed a gentle slope of a glacier and the full sun was so warm we could take our coats off and lie in the snow.
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