Bridgette Comellas – Story Teller
Interview by Vidabeth Bensen and Forrest Greenslade August 2023
As a child, pastel artist Bridgette Comellas was always drawn to the details in the illustrations of classic stories like “Beauty and the Beast.” “I believe this is what inspires me now as an artist. I tend to lean into details when I am creating a piece.”
Comellas will make her debut in the Chatham Studio Tour the first two weeks in December. Visitors to Bridgette Comellas Studio will enjoy her colorful and detailed collection of animal, portrait, nature, landscape and still-life creations.
Having drawn and painted since childhood, Bridgette went on to study fine art at Florida State University after earning an Associate of Arts degree at St. Petersburg College.
She began her artistic career in Deland, FL in a warehouse full of furniture. She learned to paint in acrylics on cupboards, birdhouses, desks, and pool tables. She also had the opportunity to paint murals.
Reflecting her childhood love of stories, in 2010, Comellas illustrated her first children’s book, “The Giraffe Who Walked to Paris,” written by Dirk Wales. A few years later she illustrated a second book, “The Adventures of Peanut and Penelope,” authored by Dr. Winnie King. She also shared her love for art and creativity with children by teaching classes in the South Lake Art League Gallery, located in downtown Clermont, FL.
Her love of the pastel medium began in 2014 after experimenting with pastels in an Art League course she took in Florida. Bridgette was inspired by other pastel works and delved into the medium. Learning predominantly on her own, she developed a style that incorporated her love for detail and color. In 2018, Bridgette and her family moved to North Carolina where she began working full time on her pastel creations. “I felt that the instant gratification achieved with this pure pigment was addicting! Pastel painting has become my focus.”
She begins most of her work on a handmade surface. Bridgette uses a liquid acrylic to stain fine pumice gel and applies it to Gatorboard. This creates a textured surface to hold the pastel. Occasionally she uses hard pastel to lay in colors, going over them with isopropyl alcohol to create an underpainting. She lays in foundational values using hard and soft pastel, working from dark to light.
“Pastel has a way of stirring the viewer with different unexpected marks or pops of color. I hope my work sparks memories of good times or the taste of good things. I hope people will feel a renewed excitement for life inspired by the vibrancy of pastel, feeling familiar with the human similarities and emotions.”
Bridgette Comellas’s work is highly detailed with some impressionistic effects. “I strive to portray reality but at the same time express poetic touches.” Her art stands out from many other pastel artists whose work is looser and interpretive. Bridgette’s work can be seen on her website: https://www.bridgettecomellas.com/ and on her Chatham Artists Guild profile page at https://chathamartistguild.org/artists/artists/bridgette-comellas/
