Anatomy of Winter

Or... "Why I love winter"
It is very simple really, winter is the time to see the bones of the landscape.  Shape and form simplify, the way the hill tucks into its self, how the woods run along the ridge, blurring edges.  Sometimes the gift is even greater, the world goes black and white! (almost!)  The usual colours are leached from the landscape leaving a very limited pallet and highlighting some very unexpected splashes of colour.

I find that I go for many walks in the wind and rain, usually, the snow and ice when I am lucky.  Just recently we were blessed with snow, a rare event down in Cornwall.  So I was out armed with camera and sketchbook, little bits of watercolour paper and small gessoed cards.  I have mini versions of almost everything I might need, including a tiny flask of hot coffee.  I have a terrible old coat that smells but is made of waxed cotton and is long enough to provide instant protection from a wet bottom on most occasions.  The good dog Coco comes along as well.

One of the best features of these winter art forays is the lack of people.  Not having to explain what I am doing, or having someone looking over my sketchbook while I try to draw is bliss!

What I tend to do is scribble a lot, in different mediums.  Small watercolours to use as they are or to turn into larger ones back in the studio.  Little oils, which look like rubbish but provide essential colour refrence and are worked into later.  Here is one such oil, sitting in the studio awaiting its "makeover"!  Look at it tho, I dont think those greens in the water would be there any other way.

I often make the same walk, I like to see a place in different weathers, times of day, seasons.  To really know trees and places, like talking to your subject while making their portrait.

Watercolour sketches provide something different again, it seems to me that they are like poems where oils are like stories,the poems are smaller in length, often more consice and more about a feeling or one thought?

And then it snows again, it is irristible so out I go again and paint some more.Making the most of this stripped down landscape, trying to learn my winter anatomy.
Back at home, in the warm, long evenings, good things on TV provide yet another oppertunity...snoozing models!