Snow-Covered Road (West Harris), 20″ x 16″, UART 320 board

Initial drawing, 10 x 8

Drawing on UART 320 board

Hard pastel underpainting, stage 1

My first “published” (on Facebook) painting of the year is this one of snow.  It was a joy to paint snow again!  They hadn’t predicted any for us this winter so I was really surprised when it occured, not once but twice last week!  Having fallen after the first snowfall, my husband took me for a ride on my favorite un-paved road–West Harris Road near Sugar Loaf Mountain.  I wanted to go there as I figured there would be more snow on the road and less travel and I was right. I took photos from the car.  I knew when I took this one it would be the one I painted, given the angles of the road and snow banks and the light coming from the right.

This was also a joy because I didn’t have to change much (compared to my sunflower painting)–primarily the color (and that’s easy!). There was a large thick post and fence in the area where the orange grasses are that I immediately deleted.  But other than that, I pretty much followed the photo.  I love the way the snow banks and angles of the shadows on the road create dynamic tension.  But doing the shadows was hard and I redid them many times. At first, I had a band of shadows all completely equidistant and really boring!  Shadows are hard for me.  My other mistake was to use a Ludwig tinted orange white to cover up the entire field, which was just too much. Then, I added some Blue earth on top and it was way too YELLOW!!!  SO, I brushed it off, put on a layer of white-blue, then added my Art Spectrum tinted white “lemon” pastel on top.  That was MUCH better.

I loved doing the snow on the trees, using some grayed blue green and blue violets and a lovely hint of light with the lemon yellow.

For the darker areas in the road, I used the grayed Blue Earth “turquoises” which are quite brown and were really perfect for this.  The Blue Earth grays have wonderful colors that just fit the bill in so many cases.

I used a combination of warm greens and violets in the background trees, with some dark red violet and dark blue at the base.  For the sky, I used one or two soft turquoises with a hint of clouds lightly brushed on top.  It seemed just right.

Now I’m focusing on demos for my classes. I’ve done one (of snow) and have two more to go.  But it’s been lovely painting for myself!

Jean