Blog #36 Let It Snow!

‘Winter Woods’ Watercolour and Ink, Double Matted 24″x30″

Okay I can pretend no longer, the chilling winter season has indeed landed here in southern Ontario. We of course have had weeks and weeks of it already with it’s below freezing temperatures, winds and snow, but I have been ignoring it. Now that I have acknowledged it I have decided this time around instead of hiding from it indoors I would meet winter head on. I started a regiment of doing daily long fast paced walks ‘out and about’ in my neighbourhood. I suited up in multiple layers of clothing under my marvellously warm parka for the event. With hat and hood and mitts and boots it was far less painful and a whole lot more fun than I was expecting.

I enjoyed seeing how the fresh snow would stick to the tree limbs like cake icing and how it’s weight bent the bushes over. How my local creek had mostly frozen over except for a line of open running water zigzagging through its middle. I noticed that the forested areas were barren of their leaves and how they stood in muted tones of greys, browns and rusts. And how their bare bone branches intersected with each other in geometric shapes. I loved how on those rare sunny days how the light would create crisp long shadows in mauves and blues. Being outside was really adding to my creative well. No matter that it’s the freezing season I was glad to be seeing the beautiful sights of my outdoor surroundings and that they were full of wonderful art worthy ideas for me to paint.

I am enjoying being out and about in the woods.

In my watercolour painting ‘Winter Woods’, above left, I decided on a bright ‘cold against hot’ colour palette. Using blues against oranges, and yellows against purples this would make the painting dynamic. I started with painting a teal blue/green outline of my images with a liquid ink. Once dry the ink is permanent which is helpful seeing I would be painting washes of watercolours against and over top of it. I chose the colours in the sky to differ each time they came up against a tree shape. I loved putting in the giant yellow sun shape which is again reflected in the water, it really anchored the painting. The juxtaposition of vertical tree trunks playing against the horizontal hill shapes gave it balance in its composition. The shadows were painted in last and gave my painting depth. I love how ‘Winter Woods’ turned out with its unusual and vivid colours, chunky stylized trees and dramatic hillside setting.

Creating winter themed paintings using watercolours is a perfect fit for me. I delight in allowing the white of my watercolour paper to become the white of my snow. Preplanning of where to and where not to add paint helps with that effect. As you can see in my 4 watercolour paintings above I had great fun bringing rich colours into these snowy scenes. I am delighted to say that all 4 of these above paintings have sold, thanks to my marvellous customers! It is always thrilling to find out that they saw and appreciated the same beauty and impact in these scenes that I did.

To see this available original watercolour painting ‘Winter Woods‘, close up and for more of my paintings available for sale please go to my original  watercolour and acrylic art galleries on this website.  Many of my paintings are also available in 5″x7″ art cards.