“Winter Afternoon”   9″ x 12″ oil on panel

I’ve needed to envelope myself in some snow lately since it’s been a rather warm and rainy winter.  How I’ve done that is to embrace painting a few winter landscapes from photo references of mine. Fortunately, we did have a day with some snow in January and I was able to get out with my camera to record some of the beauty. 

“Winter Afternoon” is a creation from one such photo. I loved the contrast of the dark branches against the white snow.  Of course the snow is never entirely “white”, so I used some imagination and pulled out colors I thought would work.

The painting has a lot of texture and I’ve let parts of the canvas ground come through.  A combination of bold and not so bold brush marks I think add to the experience.

It’s a colorful painting that I think combines elements of bold strength and gentle delicacy. I guess that typifies for me part of the experience when it snows.