Tag: winter

Old Trees in Winter

If you have been reading this blog awhile, you know I live where there is fire and not snow. Still, winter does come to my warm (ish) part of the world, and with it memories of tromping through the snow under spreading trees along a lake shore.

I use two software programs these days to scan my paintings – and I rather like the way they end up, similar but different. Above is the one using VueScan. Below is the one using Epson V600 and its software.

Epson software is more inclined to push colors, but in this case it does a decent job and pulls out more of the colors I put into the tree. Both scans are pretty much straight out of the scanner. Your choice as to preference!

Watercolor, Arches Rough 140#. Colors primarily burnt umber, ultramarine blue, Hooker’s green. 10×14.

Winter in the White Mountains

It is exactly a week before Christmas. Today, in SoCal, the wind is blowing, there are fire warnings, and it is about 77F (25C). It is a bit warm. Snow seems to be a good subject to watercolor!

The focal point of painting this picture, besides wanting a bit of snow for the season, is to see if I could catch the softness of the bare birch trees that act as a barrier between the snowy foreground and the mountainous background. Anyone who has seen the leafless birch trees at a distance knows that there is a sort of haziness as all their branches overlap and merge into a softness with some detail and without much detail at all.

I used a relatively limited palette – mostly ultramarine, Hooker’s green, burnt sienna and umber. In some areas I used titanium white gouache, partly to place definite snowy details as well as to blur into the birch branches to create that softness I wanted to express.

Not a bad way to spend an afternoon out of the wind!

Watercolors, Arches 140# CP, 10×14, some gouache.

Another Bit of Snow

Today I played around with the same subject of the other day – a covered bridge with a bit of snow. The goal for today was a much more direct use of the colors, with very little returning to fix this or that with a glaze. Consequently, it is more casual and not especially refined – such as the bridge itself – but I like its simplicity and clarity of color. I met my goal in this painting. Below is the original from the other day.

I may choose to do this same picture a few more times – pen and color as well as another one more direct but done more carefully. It’s a good subject overall.

Watercolor, 10×14 Arches 140# CP.

A Bit of Snow

It is this time of year, the end of October, when I dream of autumn fading away and the first snows of winter arriving. I was born in mid-October, and my mother says she went into labor with me on a warm, sunny autumnal day and came home in a blizzard. I always remember this story, and as a kid loved seeing bright autumn leaves and berries still on the trees and bushes breaking through a fresh layer of snow. Weather like this was always a birthday present from Mother Nature!

Covered bridges spanning creeks are still in existence in various bits of the east coast. I imagine they were welcome resting spots for those on horseback or in open carts or wagons, out of the wind and snow or rain. For me, they are part of my own nostalgia for “the good old days” – and really lovely bits of historical architecture.

It has been a long time since I have witnessed the autumns and winters of hardwood woodlands. They always linger as some of the most beautiful memories. The mid-west and eastern states of New York north are where I want to be this time of year. But, where I live, in sunny SoCal, this is not the case, even though the Sierras have much to offer this time of year. And, admittedly, I am glad I don’t have to deal with chains and mukluks and woolies and long johns. I will admire the change of seasons from afar, more so in my dotage.

Watercolor, unknown watercolor paper with poor sizing, 11×14.

Winter Creek

First, I am not at all sure where I found the photograph upon which this painting is based – public domain? If not, and it is yours, I am sorry I cannot give you credit. Let me know, ok?

Oil paints on Canson Oil/Acrylic paper.

Initially I started out with a brush and soon realized that whatever I tried to paint was just not working. The grasses were not clear and sharp and the clouds were blobby. In the end, and out of frustration, I took a palette knife and used it to smear color into the painting – and all of a sudden I found out what painting in oils with a palette knife is capable of doing.

I am prejudiced against heavy impasto just because I don’t find it interesting to look at. First in my mind is how much dust it could collect and what a pain heavy impasto paintings could be to clean. Much impasto is done with a knife – though brushes also do the job, as seen in the work of van Gogh. So, I have avoided it to date.

Smearing paint around with a knife gives some dimension (3D) on a flat surface, but the way the paint moves is so interesting! I also used the knife tip to scratch away in the colors for the grasses, and that was both doing what I wanted to do, as well as somehow felt deliciously rebellious against my conformist self.

The snow, though, and the river, are done with brush. Brushwork was laid down first pretty much throughout the painting, and my aggravation then brought out the knife. Learning experience. And, I don’t think I could have rendered either sky or grasses anywhere to my liking with a brush of any size.

Live and learn.

11×14, knife and brush, on paper.