ORIGINALLY WRITTEN JANET HAMOUS
When Chad Litton is not out on the links perfecting his golf stroke, you can find him in the Peabody-Burns High School art room working on his brush stroke.
Litton is a returning state qualifier on the Peabody-Burns Warriors golf team and a senior art student.
Painting is his passion.
“Oil paints are my favorite,” he said. “They’re easier to paint with and blend the colors.”
Litton has been involved in formal art classes since junior high, but he just discovered oil paints this year in his fourth-year art class. His earlier projects were done with tempera paint, he said.
Drawing and painting just came naturally to Litton and have been a part of his life for as long as he can remember.
“I don’t think I’m real good at art, but it’s just something I love to do,” he said modestly.
Peabody-Burns art teacher Andrea Corcoran has been impressed with Litton’s thoughtful approach to art.
“He’s pretty insightful about his work,” she said.
Litton has experimented with a variety of art techniques.
“We do everything from drawing to painting to clay,” he said.
This year he completed several charcoal drawings, still-life drawings and self-portraits. But his favorite-and the most time consuming-project was an oil-over-tempera painting he is just completing.
“I’m going to try and finish that this weekend so I can enter it into the art competition,” he said.
Litton doesn’t know where he got the idea for the painting.
“I just started drawing one day and it came out,” he said.
“It came out pretty good,” he added.
Litton said his ideas usually come from other pieces of artwork or sketches he does. His paintings often begin as drawings.
“Usually I just sketch something out on a piece of paper,” he said. “If I like it, I’ll draw it on a bigger piece and paint it.”
Although he has a sketchbook at home, Litton said he does most of his artwork at school.
His finished pieces are proudly displayed in his home in Peabody.
“I just mat them and hang them up in my room,” he said.
When his current painting is finished, Litton will move on to clay.
“We’re making masks from the African tribes,” he said. “We’re going to paint the glazes.”
The mask will probably be the last project in a year that has gone by quickly.
“I haven’t got a whole lot done this year,” he lamented.
In addition to his art class, Litton is currently enrolled in college prep English and math classes, but he doesn’t plan to go to college immediately.
“I enlisted in the Navy for six years,” he said. “I didn’t want to go to college right away, so I figured that would be a good thing to do. A lot of family members have been in the Navy.”
He will go to Great Lakes, Ill., for basic training; he plans to train to be a hospital corpsman.
Litton said he isn’t sure whether art will fit into his busy future.
“I probably won’t have time,” he said with a smile.
