Hydrangea Blooms

I'm so sick of winter - we've had weeks of minus 10 degrees, where walking is a literal pain.  I have to cover my face from the ice, and then my glasses fog up and I have to take them off and walk in blur.....not fun......This autumn we took a trip up to Lake Placid and I took lots of photos of this hydrangea bush.  They looked so lush and spoke to me this week of the summer and warmth to come.  We hope - snow predicted tonight - up to 8 inches......

12x18 on Wallis Belgium Mist pastel paper

Willow, The Adirondack Coon Hound

Willow, our wonderful, sweet, big, loud barker of a Coon hound.  We took her when our daughter found she couldn't walk her the way she needed to be walked.  Newborn babies will do that to owners and their dogs.  We live in a rural area and walking is a way of life up here, so it was not problem taking Willow and walking miles with her.  I took this reference photo a couple of years ago, while Wilow was sitting by the fire on her favorite blanket.  Her liquid, brown eyes seem to be saying, do you have any food on you?

11x14 on Richeson hard board

Ice Dreams

Before going to Florida for the holidays to visit family, I started this pastel.  We were getting ice and cold, but nothing like is depicted in this pastel.  The photo came from a friend who does get this kind of ice and snow in Syracuse, NY.  The original photo has a large tree branch filled with snow in the leff hand corner.  In order to show the shadows I wanted to show, I eliminated that tree and the branches.  It is a beautiful photo, but I think, as a painting, I needed to put that large block of shadow in, falling off the page.  I hope it shows the movement I felt in those tree shadows.

pastel 11x14 on board

Hidden Stream

Another in a series of snow scenes I have decided to paint this almost-winter.  We've had some snow and they're saying we might be up to a foot of snow this coming week - lovely (ugghh).  Yet, even though the process of getting those inches is terrible - when it's finally on the ground and we get to hike to special, quiet places that few people see, it is all worth it.

Another pastel from our favorite hike down near the ski slopes of Gore Mountain.  I hope you "feel" the cold like we did on that hike.  Mounds of snow covered the stream, yet we could hear it gurgling underneath, alive and well and waiting for spring.

12x16 on Ampersand Board

Silent Creek

The Adirondacks......a great place to hike, even on a sunny, cold Sunday afternoon in February.  My husband and I took a hike near Gore Mountain last February and we came upon this lovely spot where the shadows on the creek stood out.  The water was dark, the snow was exceptional - so clean -- and the shadows were incredibly prominent.   Snow can be a challenge to paint - it's certainly not just white.  It reflects all the colors around it and seems alive to me.  Hopefully, we'll get to go back to this same spot this year and maybe we'll get to see a deer enjoying this spot, along with us.

11x14 on Ampersand board

Snow Train

Finally finished the pastel of the train that comes to North Creek NY.  Every winter the train makes trips from New York City and Saratoga Springs, to North Creek, where the skiing is great at Gore Mountain.  The train specializes in a great breakfast before skiers disembark at the North Creek station for a day, or a week, of skiing.  I always love to see these trains stopped in the snow.  I took this photo last year - it was snowing, cold and quiet at the station.  Getting the snow on the pastel board was a challenge.  I tried Liz Haywood Sullivan's method of alcohol on a toothbrush with pastel and it worked up to a point, but I also manually added the flakes.  Between the two techniques, I think it worked!

This pastel is on Ampersand board and is 16x20.

Little Early Christmas Paintings

This past week I've been busy painting tiny acrylic paintings that I'm turning into Christmas tree ornaments for the local Country Christmas Tour, which our town hold every Thanksgiving weekend.  The money raised helps our town Ambulance Corps, Volunteer Fire Dept., and school scholarships.  It's a nice way to help the community and I've enjoyed painting these very small landscapes and animals.   It means simplifying the compositions without loosing the essentials.  Here are a few of my tiny acrylics.

I should say that some are painted on birch bark and all have backing that sparkles......for Christmas!