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| A snowy day, the perfect day for painting snow scenes. I have been home in Ouray for almost a month. As soon as we returned from 2 months of great hiking in Utah, I got out my paints and printed some reference photos of some of the radiant red rock canyons we had explored. I put paint on paper trying to recreate the magic and feel of those hidden canyons and sandstone monoliths. Phooey, it just would not come out as I saw it in my head. Into the trash. I tried again...it just wasn't working. Then yesterday with all the fun and activity of Christmas behind us and also with the completion of a unique sewing project (quilt), I got my paints out once again. This time I scanned thru some photos from last winter's snow shoeing excursions. After all it is winter and it is snowing. There is a fire glowing in the fireplace and there is football on the TV, a great time to paint. |
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| This is a sketch of my first scene with the sky painted. I used a wet in wet technique with cerulean blue at the horizon and adding cobalt and ultramarine as I went up. When it was still damp, I used kleenex to make the white streaks in the sky |
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| Here, I am just starting to add color and shadow to an area of snow. Since my sky was still damp and I did not want to chance other colors seeping into the blues, I moved down to an area that I could wet without disturbing the sky. After wetting this area I dropped in some yellow, permanent rose, and a mixture of permanent rose and cobalt blue. |
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| While that area was drying, I wet the mountain and added some exposed rocky areas with an ultramarine - burnt sienna mixture. Then I took a small flat brush and mixed sap green with june bug and ultramarine to create the trees and their shadows. |
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| Each area of snow was done wet in wet. The different colors and shadows give contour to the landscape |
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| "Climbing Higher" |
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| Second scene: I wanted to give the affect of a glowing low winter sun and so I used a light wash of yellow in the sky on the left, then added my blues and permanent rose as I moved to the right. While the sky was drying I wet the lower area of snow and used the same colors as in the sky. |
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| Here the same colors are used to create the contours in the snowscape, and the same green mixture I used in the first scene for the trees. |
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| More trees, more shading and shadows to indicate the direction of the light |
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| "All Is Calm" |
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| The same techniques and colors were used in this third painting. I wanted the three of them to compliment each other. Each one is 8x8 and will be matted to 12x12 or in one matt all together. "Making Tracks, on Red Mountain" |
