It's December Already!

 Melissa reminded me that I haven't put up a post since October, so I figured I better get on that since I have actually been painting quite a lot! And that's even with having our first getaway since moving back to New England - we spent four days in central Massachusetts for Thanksgiving with Melissa's family. It's our first Thanksgiving with them in many years, and it was wonderful to see everyone again. Here's the evidence that I was there:

Meanwhile, on the painting front...

I'm happy to say that I've had work in three shows recently - two at the Falmouth Art Center and one at the Cape Cod Museum of Art. The next one I plan to enter is at FAC, and it has the theme Brrr. The idea is to capture the feeling of winter light (or darkness) and that icy feeling of January  coooooooooooollllllddddd...

So, I've worked on a number of pieces that could fit the theme, but I think this one is my choice. Winter sunlight creates reflections and shadows among the trees and I've tried to capture that through the use of color in a sort of playful and exaggerated fashion here. I love the idea of using unexpected color as a proxy for light and shadow on the bare trees of winter and coupling that with the pure white of untouched snow. This one is 18" by 24" on gallery-wrapped canvas.

Winter Forest Reflections 

Here are some of the other pieces I worked on for the Brrr theme. The first one is in a similar vein to the one above, and then I switched to an almost-all-white scene for a complete contrast. These two are smaller at 8" x 16".

Winter Beauty

Aspens in Winter

Then, in a whole different vein, I worked on this larger piece, depicting snow on a mountain. I really love this painting and think it fits the Brrr theme well too. It's 15" by 30" by 1.5" gallery-wrapped canvas.

Snow on the Mountain

And finally, my most recent piece a REALLY big one at 36" by 36" by 1.5" gallery-wrapped canvas. 

My first iteration was in mostly gray and brown tones, and there was a pathway going into the woods. But I decided it was too dull and that the path was distracting. So I painted over it and ended up with this very nuanced winter woods scene. I kept the trees from the first painting, but overlaid them with a wash of white so that you end up with just a glimpse of the woods - almost as though looking through a fog. 

I like the overall effect. This could be a contender for Brrr too, but I think I'll stick with my choice above, as these others can go into future shows too.

Into the Woods