While in Winter…

paint wintery scenes…

Stopping on the side of less today because, well, I think it just looks done or enough. I see I left out some things of the foreground and the mid-background but I’ll look at it again when it’s totally dry.

January Almost Gone

Been a little too cold around here to paint outside much. Even today which touched above freezing was really too cold to just sit somewhere and try to get something done while everything freezes. Today I did get some reference photos and tried one of a scene that I’ve admired for awhile. I’ll need to go back on a sunny morning because it just shines.

This was a recent very cold morning.

And about a week ago, another collection of barns and sheds.

Mid-January

I went out yesterday, when there was a little light and found a spot to watch the sky and throw a little paint around. A man pulled up and leapt out of his car to take some photos. In the direction he was looking, there was a lot of color, so I headed down the hill and chanced pulling into Darrow Rd to see what could be seen there. I took a bunch of photos and tonight sat down to see what might happen.

What I had been painting:

What I had been painting the day before

Cold January Hath Arriveth

Last night the howling wind continued but it blew away all the Farenheits and this morning it was 15F.

I toodled off to Williamstown for an hour of drawing from selections in the Manton Collection at the Clark. An hour isn’t a long time to draw. I went in with the idea that I’d try to work faster – to put down the values. I worked a bit longer on the first one and then did a few more very quick ones, the final one done from a work by Francois Bonvin seeming so abstract that even I couldn’t tell what it was until I walked up to it and discovered it was a still life of inkstand and pens and desk paraphenalia LOL. Mine was definitely not that.

Came home and took a deep breath and finished this.

I’ve always said that if I become Queen, my first mission will be to bury all cables because, frankly, it’s all out of hand. I’d gotten it to the “oh it’s a pretty local scene” sort of thing last night but committed to at least one pole by putting it in in a faint blue. Sorry I didn’t scan it but at least I took a reasonable photo.

And here’s a sketch based on Melencolia I, Albrecht Dürer, 1514 and a still life by Francois Bonvin.

From the Quote Box: Perseverance

perseverance, n. A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success — Ambrose Bierce

Taking Time for a Take Two

This was the first take

and this was the do-over.

Doing a little painting in the New Year

January has been moderately cold and very gray and rainy. Not great for painting outside. A few days when the sun has popped out I’ve run out to chase it and at least take a few photos to document that the sun is still around!

Sunday I painted in the car and did these two versions of a scene down at Ooms Conservation Area.

Tonight’s Paint

This is drying a bit. Will look at it again tomorrow.

I heard someone say in a video, rather derisively, that of course your paint should be on your RIGHT if you’re right handed and then of course I noticed that indeed all the painters I watch have the paint on the side of their dominant hand… so I am trying it. Feels mighty weird since I’ve had it set up the other way since I’ve had a table with paint set up on it. When I’m out and about my paint is either in front of me or it ends up being on the right so… Feels might weird and a little wibbly-wobbly. Time will tell.

Happy Birthday J.R.R.

Yes it’s that time again to remember the birthday of J.R.R. Tolkien and to be strengthened by those he wrote of, who may have seemed small and weak but managed in time of need to be strong enough to do what had to be done, even if they didn’t know what that was beforehand.

Happy Birthday J.R.R.!

…the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.

~~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, Book II, The Land of Shadow.

Happy 2019!

After staying up last night til midnight and doing the traditional door opening to let the old year out and new year in, I did step out on the porch to see what the new year was all about and it was all about the heavy rain and wind.

This morning was cloudy and very windy which made for interesting skies. I stopped at various places in New Lebanon to take some photos. It was too cold to set up outside so I grabbed some breakfast and then drove up the hill to just past the state line. There’s a convenient scenic overview there so I sat in my car and painted for a bit.

A good way to start the year. Then I came home and continued what I’d started the day before, clearing out some stuff that needed clearing.