Winter Farm on Christmas Eve

Now to the northern part of the continent . . . somewhere in North America for winter on the a prairie farm, snow covering field stubble, early evening or morning. Cold, desolate, and heartbreakingly beautiful.

I spent the morning painting this on rough 300# natural white Kilimanjaro. I did it in stages. The sketch was light, with suggestions of shapes. Then the sky was wet and yellow, quin gold, and permanent alizarin crimson used to create the rosy golds. Once down, cobalt blue and ultramarine were placed to simulate sky being careful not to merge into the rose gold of the central cloud. As the sky dried, purple and alizarin were mixed with ultramarine to create the darker clouds. 

After the clouds were laid in, I did the dark trees, blurring some green into the still damp sky, as well as waiting for the sky and soft trees to dry. This was done to create the hard edges needed for the buildings against the tree line. The buildings themselves were left white as the trees dried.

From there, the snowy field was laid in with cobalt and ultramarine in a very light wash and using a 2″ soft brush. Again, drying. At one point, the 2″ brush was dried and dipped into lightly damp burnt umber and applied to make the streaks of brown for field stubble near and far. Then the buildings were done, and once the snow dried, more thin washes as glazes applied to the foreground snow, culminating in a streak of quin gold and then permanent alizarin to the middle of the painting, hoping to show a sense of light reflected in the still dark snow from the breaking clouds above.

After that, details such as dried grasses, windows, tree trunks and whatever were added as deemed necessary.

I am pleased with this painting quite a bit! It achieves what I set out to do – a winter scene, snow, clouds, and patience to wait and think about a painting before just diving in with brush and color. The 300# rough Kilimanjaro is 11×14 and a wonderful paper to paint on. More is needed in the future for sure.

Winter Road in Hill Country

Today I decided to do some oil pastels. This is my second – no, third – painting in the medium. The cat and mandarin were on Strathmore 300 watercolor paper; this is on an 8×8 cotton canvas panel, the kind used for oils or acrylics. I read you could use oil pastels on nearly any kind of surface, so I grabbed this just to try it out.

To tell the truth, oil pastels are fun to use, but they are also tricky. Blending colors makes sense – layer this with that to make thus – but the blending itself is a rather creative experience. I used stumps (tortillons) for the most part, but toward the end I used my finger tips. Also, I found out that if I put on too many layers, eventually the newer layers pull off the underlying colors. While this could work for some desired effect, it was problematic in other ways. Live and learn, right?

I scanned this canvas on my Epson V600 (one of my best purchases!) as photographing paintings is time consuming, tedious, and usually worthless the way I do it. Two scans were needed, and in between I had to wipe of the glass platen to remove little oil pastel bits. Apparently oil pastels never really dry out, but you can apply a finishing spray to them. Sennelier makes one, which I bought along with my pastels, which I will try probably next week.

A Winter’s Creek

We have had rain – yay! – and thunderstorms, and threats of tornadoes (which never came) – and puddles of water, and a back yard lake. More to come, perhaps, but gentle and warmer, with a promise of a relatively sunny Christmas. I love the briskness this weather brings, but am also very happy not to have to shovel snow or drive in it. In fact, I was flying through water at intersections the other day, but luckily I am in an area without low lying ground which floods, unlike other areas of the county where people woke up to flooded bedrooms.

So, winter! Winter solstice is come and gone, and in many ways I wish we marked it more with bonfires and merriment, as in the olden days. I paint winter, partly from photos, partly from memory and imagination. 

Probably most of my memories come from upstate New York. No place that I have visited does winter quite like the mixed hardwood and pine forests. Bright green, dark green, barren branches, tall trees. Skies can be sunny and fierce, dull and overcast, and everything in between. Water, whether lake or stream, takes on its own life when frozen, thawed or in between. It still amazes me that fish swim under the ice and amphibians bury themselves in the mud until spring comes.

Happy Solstice!

Evolution

Several weeks ago I started an acrylic painting of a building at the end of a road. It was sort of painted in a traditional manner, meaning I was trying to represent reality. Truthfully, it bored the hell out of me, but I kept it as it was fairly decent in my opinion, but it did put me to sleep. 

Working with brighter colors of late has really been exciting for me as I feel much more of a connection to the colors I use than I do to subject matter. Subject matter can be anything – but colors express more to me and are more true to who I am (a magpie reincarnated as an old bat) than subject matter in general. So, I took the painting and painted over it. Below is the original.

This is a photograph I took and it is pretty crap (above) as there is a lot of weird stuff going on. I didn’t think it scanning it because of its size. This morning I scanned my current iteration of this painting.

I like this much better, but it is not quite done. I need to work on the road in the foreground as well as details of the building. More windows, fix windows, fewer windows? Create some focus at the end of the road? Fix the road? Cast some shadows – creating light and dark – across the road?

Many things to consider here. I am going to let it sit and ignore it awhile. If you have any ideas, let me know!

Acrylic, canvas, 18×24, scanned on an Epson V600.

A Late Winter Afternoon

When I lived in upstate New York, the winters were marvelous! Hardwood forests and pine trees all worked together to create a magical land of light and shadow, rolling snow banks, and winter streams frozen and thawed and frozen again. The skies, too, were amazing in their coldness of light that could reflect so brilliantly on the snowy landscape.

As an adult, snow as a place to live, work, and travel in no longer holds much allure – great to visit, but don’t ask me to wade through it, chisel ice off my windshield, or shovel it just to get out of my house. Still, the memories of those magical winter days in deep winter always hold a spot in my heart for their crisp and intense beauty.

10×14″ Arches Rough, watercolor limited palette of umbers, quin gold, ultramarine blue, and a touch of titanium white gouache.