A Winter Day, 20 x 24, BFK RIves and gel

I was supposed to be giving the first day of my Abstracting the Landscape Workshop today, something I’ve been looking forward to for some time. But, alas, it is snowing heavily and I am home. So, since I love snowy days, I decided to make the most of it and paint. This is a farm near Altoona, PA. I shot the picture in November sans snow!  I used today’s weather as inspiration for the coloring and decided to try out some different pastels. The background trees are  done with 3 Henri Roche pastels.  I paid a lot for them, and I really should use them!  I also unwrapped  a bunch of the new Daler-Rowney that I bought years ago, thinking that some harder, Rembrandt-like pastels would be good for me. However, I very quickly gave up on that and went back to my trusty Giraults and Ludwigs!   I toned the gel with the same raw sienna gel that I used for the Amish Barn painting. I like the glow that comes through in the sky. I used several of the Daler-Rowney’s and a pale warm green Roche and it worked very nicely.  I wanted to keep the colors subdued and soft. I added reds to the barn, but only after adding violets and browns. And then, nothing too bright.  For the evergreens, I started out with a dark violet, then a dark green, then added a lighter grayed green over them using a diagonal stroke to simplify and soften them.  Really liked the affect.  The cows were in the field. I wondered about having two cows appearing to be eating grass when I’ve put snow around them!  However, I really liked the little dark shapes.  This painting doesn’t have the impact of the last barn picture, and there is more detail. But I DID leave out a whole lot of junk that was in front of the buildings!  It’s going down to 6 here tonight. Stay warm and safe everyone (on the East Coast)!