Soft pastel on hot-pressed watercolor paper; pumice ground added.
30x23 cm (12x9 in)
Winter's coming-- yay. I think. Maybe it will actually snow this year and I'll get to use my snowshoes. The other day, after doing several fall paintings (I do live in New England, and it is almost obligatory to do fall color), I decided I really wanted to paint a winter scene. This is based on a photo I took a couple of winters ago (when it actually snowed the way it is supposed to in New England), at a wildlife refuge in the Taconic Mountains. The Taconics are a beautiful range which runs up the border of Massachussets, New York, and Vermont to the Champlain Valley. I used to make monthly trips to the Hudson Valley from my home in Vermont, and stumbled across this spot about midway, away from the main road. A lovely, peaceful place to snowshoe in the winter. I could get right down into the wetlands where it is normally too wet to hike.
In painting this, I was trying out some techniques, a bit of a deviation from my usual style. Overall, I am pleased with the results. I'll live with it a while now, to see how I feel about it before framing. Sometimes I make changes, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I keep it, sometimes I just throw it away.
