Morning After the Snow, 20 x 16″, UART 320

Underpainting, stage 1

Underpainting, stage 2

Paiinting, stage 1

At end of demo

Today I did my first of two snow demos for my weekday classes.  They are both snow paintings (my last!) for my December 2020 show.  Now that the cherry blossoms are coming out, the snow is not quite as welcome looking, however, we had none this year!

This painting is of our neighborhood (it’s from Dogwood Park in Rockville).  I chose the image because of the light on the water in the creek, and the light pieces of snow on the roofs in the background.  I knew that it wouldn’t be easy, particularly since the foreground was filled with ruts and foot prints. And –there was NO color in the photo.  So I chose to paint it from a black and white photo, using intuitive color, which gave me a nice change to teach more about this method to my newer students.

I chose a series of greens and browns for the underpainting, with dark blue and dark red in the stream bed.  For the houses in the background, I used a combination of cool and warm. Then when painting over them, used a violet and a warm yellow brown of the same value.  The sun is coming from the upper left corner, so I tried to vary the color and temperature of the sky and the houses as they went to the right, as well as the snow .  I started the roofs with a blue green, then added some very light Ludwig pink.  Most of the snow colors are Ludwigs.  I think that Girault and Ludwig have become my two favorites (in case you couldn’t tell!).

When working on the sunlit swath of snow behind the trees, I added some Girault very light warm greenish-brown. I meant to use that color in the underpainting and didn’t!  So I put it in, then used some Ludwig pink and orange on top.  I also added some slightly darker oranges and pinks as I went along.

For the area of sun and shadow above the stream bed, I started with a Ludwig blue and put it across the entire area, then added the lights into it. That worked quite well.

The center of interest is supposed to be the light in the water.  I used the lightest yellow and a very saturated stroke over pieces of grayed blue green.  Then I added a branch on top of it.

The foreground was the challenge, as I noted. I thought about leaving it smooth with shadows, but given the angle of the light, there wouldn’t have been any shadows!  And, I really liked the strong diagonal that the ruts made, which leads the eye into the picture and to the sunlight on the water.  So I went with it and worked quickly, doing most of the lower left during the demo.  The rest of the bottom was done afterwards and I tried to keep it loose and suggestive.

I’m really happy with this painting!  I think I’ll enter it into a competition before the Dec. show.  We’ll see.  Anyway, it was a fun challenge and I felt good to have achieved a painting that captures what I had in mind.