Tag: snow

Morning Sketch 3 – Winter sun

Nothing great . . . 6×9 on Strathmore Vision 140# paper.

What is the purpose of this sketch? First, trying to lead the eye to the two trees on the opposite river bank. Second, trying to reflect warm and cool light on the snow and ice of the river.

Problems? Paper is not great, but good for these kind of studies. Also using different paints – Schmincke pan paints, which are more saturated than the travel paints I used the past two days. And, as always, my sense of perspective is off. I am not quite sure why and it really bugs me!! Oh, well, perhaps one day I will find the answer to that problem.

Thinking about the atmospheric perspective, it seemed I needed softer edges in the distance. So, I wet the paper, blurred it a bit, and smeared a light mess of a blue-grey to give some distance. Then I took the painting into LR and decided to adjust the vertical perspective a bit, tilting the picture back a bit, and then doing a “smart fill” in the areas left white by that adjustment.

Don’t know if it improved the picture, but I think it might have as I often feel as if I am falling into my painting from above – sort of like a bad dream.

Somewhere in the Mountains

I went to Pixabay looking for snow and shadows and cold weather. The painting is of the photo below, done in gouache, 7×10.

The challenge here is depth of field – details – not too many details – simplification – and most fun of all, the shadows on the snow. I really enjoyed looking at the photo, imagining myself in it, and wondering where it is I am. In the photo, the white snow on the bare tree branches is really easy to see, but with gouache I always find my whites are never bright enough. Always interesting to compare a photo to a painting!

Skating Pond

I was never any good at skating, but I did try it out a lot when I was a kid. We moved from a really cold place in the midwest to a warmer climate on the east coast, leaving rural farmland with ponds and lakes for a bit of suburbia in New Jersey. Every year the neighbors would get together and scrape the snow off the nearby lake, test the ice, and create a skating pond. We were never allowed to go by ourselves because of the chance of falling through the ice, but it seems there was always a dad or mom to supervise a dozen kids in snow suits, wipe away our tears, keep us generally under control.

Watercolor, 9×12, 140# CP ArtBeek paper.

Abandoned in Winter

Well, this one sure had me going for a while! The idea was to avoid angles, and look squarely into the building, and so I did . . . and then came along the Esposo who said, “Nay! This does not work!” And, damn, if he wasn’t right! So, I had to pull out some gouache to overlay a roof on the tree in the background, and make the roof look rather beat up and weathered, with beams and such visible. Sort of a success.

And, I wanted to paint falling snow. Falling snow in a photograph varies from white, sharp dots to elongated shapes. Time to experiment. I used some gouache, diluted, and applied some streaks – I wanted a sense of wind blowing from upper left to lower right, with snow pushed by the wind. It was okay. So, I got a fan brush and made a wet mess of the white paint and splattered and splattered and splattered. I even got it my coffee. Luckily the paint isn’t poisonous, so I shall return.

Overall, this is not a great success as a painting, but it was fun. I rather like the composition with the tree in the very front of the painting. The barn is w-a-a-y off as far as believable perspective, but such is life. But, I have been sticking to my snow themes, and perhaps it is time to do one more and then move to a different season different subject, or put it away for a few days and get back to sewing or doing photography. I can now hobble forth on my partly healed broken toe.

Arches rough, 140#, 10×14. Watercolor with a splash (well, several splashes) of gouache.