snow and shadows -- january

My challenge goal this month is snow and shadows. Because we don't have snow all the time (even though sometimes it seems like it). I may have to paint from photographs because the paint freezes when I'm outside. I may copy paintings, Lars Lerin's creative tip #4 "Dare to copy: Don't think you need to have your own style. It will come by itself. You can't force it."

Last month I ended up doing a bunch of evening paintings and experimented with making shades of grey from pthalo blue, pthalo green, and quin violet. In the same way that darkness isn't black, snow isn't white and is full of color. Snow is also full of contour where darkness seemed more full of planes and angles. I'll need to work on contour as well, and like on a map where elevations are marked with contour lines only I will need to show drifts instead. 

This multi day painting was a copy of a Jonas Lie painting. Not really a full on copy but a general copy with a bunch missing. Acrylic on an 8x8" board. I like it fine. It's missing emotion and probably because I don't have a connection to the place because I've never been there. I tried to imagine it as a southern MN trout stream in the winter to give it a sense of place for me. I added the rocks in the stream to make it more trout-y. I started to fuss with this and stopped.  

Here's another copy of a Jonas Lie painting. On a 4x6 inch cut piece of the cardboard that is the back of padded paper, gesso'd white, then painted with gouache. This one I did in about an hour in the evening and even though it looks like it was painted by a raccoon or a very small child and I also think it reflects my novice gouache skills. I like it anyway, more than the one spent 2 days painting. Also, I kind of missed my self-imposed assignment and there isn't very much snow in it. It still reads as winter to me anyway. 

The first painting of the month was a watercolor on postcard paper that I didn't finish. There are supposed to be more trees. I was wandering around Town and Country golf course and watching the sledders and skiers even though the snow was all mashed up because hundreds of people and dogs had been trampling around and we haven't had fresh snow since right before Christmas. I'm not sure I'll do very many watercolors but it's only early in the month. 

Watercoloring snow has not been easy but if it was easy that wouldn't be the point of my self-imposed challenge. I've been wandering around the park reserves looking at snow shadows and taking photos, looking at artwork, copying artwork, and trying to paint what I've photo'd. What I've learned so far: 1. It's hard to keep the white space because it's often the smallest but for snow it needs to be there so plan ahead, 2. Negative space is my friend if I remember to look at it, 3. Snow is not blank white, 4. I'm getting better at mixing dark neutrals but I have a long way to still go, 5. Some of my brushes are stupid and useless, and 6. paper matters (yes, I knew that and have to remind myself it's true). 

I did a similar painting to this one a few days ago and then wasn't sure I liked it because I added gouache to it because the paper was too yellow (Arches) and then I didn't like the gouache so I washed the paper
(here, and it's weirdly not the same color as real) . I photo'd before I washed and after I washed the paper. And now when I look at photos of both versions I like them both for different reason. 

I have to work on the photos to make them look like the painting. I've said that forever. 

I'm going to keep going with snow while we have it.