Yet another snow scene

It has been a dismal couple of weeks in the southeast with day after day of rain and grey skies. This is quite a contrast from the usual daily doses of sunshine I am now used to after having left Michigan over three years ago.

Looking out the window and seeing mist and grey seems to have been my inspiration for the snow scenes once I got started. Birch in Snow is likely to be the last one for now, though. The rich, brilliant colors I normally use in my acrylic pieces are beckoning once again.....

Birch in Snow, Watercolor on 140lb paper, 4'x6', $20 (unframed)

Snow-laden Trio

In response to Snowy Meadow, Carol Schiff rightly pointed out the challenge of switching betweeen painting oils and acrylics, where one goes from dark to light, and painting watercolor, where the process is reversed. In watercolor, the lights must be preserved right from the beginning since there is no good way to add them afterwards.

I started Snow-laden Trio by making a loose pencil sketch. Then I used masking fluid to block out the snow both on the trees and the ground, as well as the tall leafless tree trunks. The next step was to apply the sky using a graded wash of pthalo blue. Towards the ground burnt sienna was added to the blue along with lots of water to get a weak grey wash for the foreground.

Once the wash was dry, the evergreens were laid in using a strong blue-green mix. After the trees were dry the masking fluid was peeled off, then the grasses and shading were added to the foreground. On stepping back, the hard edge between the bottom of the trees and the foreground did not seem quite right, so I softened it out with a wet brush.

Snow-laden Trio, Watercolor on 140lb paper, 9"x12", $35 (unframed)

Dreaming of Spring

Spring may not be quite around the corner but at least the days are starting to get longer. Soon the unremitting grey will start to give way to bits of color signaling a new growing season. I have tried to represent in this piece that early spot of color that can be seen in an otherwise dismal landscape. Among all the greys and browns, there are little bits of yellows and reds that begin to enliven the scenery once again before full-blown spring arrives.

Early Spring is very much a northern landscape with its steely grey sky and brown dormant foliage in the background. The streaks of white indicate retreating snow that will melt and freeze many times before it leaves. As yet the only sign of growth is the brightening grasses sticking out through the dark ice in the foreground and the distant middle ground.

Early Spring, Acrylic on canvas board, 5'x7', $25 (unframed)

Snowy Meadow in Watercolor

While I am not especially fond of snowy scenes, a reader of this blog made a special request to which I am responding in this post. Since the requester is a native of Canada with plenty of access to scenes like this, I am a bit puzzled at the request.......Anyway, here goes.

I don't often paint in watercolor so this one took some preparation and thought. The whitest streaks of snow were covered with masking fluid which was removed after the initial graded wash of pthalo and ultramarine blue. The rest was just a matter of serially laying in the trees and embellishing the foreground with some stray grasses poking through the snow. The white patches look reddish but only in the photograph -- must have been the light while I was taking the picture. In the actual painting they are a brilliant white which, mixed with the pale bluish foreground, gives the painting a "cold" look.

Snowy Meadow, Watercolor on 140lb paper, 9"x12", SOLD