Winter Hike - Putney Mountain Road

Last winter I did two huge (for me) paintings of winter scenes up in Newfane, Vermont.  I was working from photographs and I posted several times in this blog on their progress.  I was having difficulty trying to determine what the true colors were - especially of the snow and its shadows.   I worked on the compositions and got the structural aspects done, then I waited for it to snow.   My plan was to adjust the snow color when I had a live winter scene here, the best reference of all.  Amazingly, it never did snow last winter (2012) - at least not enough to constitute a wintery scene.  The two paintings have been stacked in a corner for months.

At the Boston International Art Show, I saw two stunning snow scenes done by Walter Launt Palmer (1854-1932).   The snow in his paintings actually seemed to glisten.  Further searches online revealed that Palmer was well known for his snowscenes, many of which were done in Albany, New York in the mid-1880's.  I haven't painted much snow, but I have seen a lot of snow, enough to know when someone depicts it effectively.  Newly inspired by the beauty of Palmer's snowscapes, I thought about my big canvases in the corner (turned inward and not visible).

I pulled out the first canvas, a walk up Mount Putney Road in Vermont.   Although I didn't have a good reference for color, my impression of the dormant painting was encouraging.  I thought the values were good, the composition was interesting and it really brought back the memory of being out there on that sparkling, clear winter day.   I was glad I picked the subject matter.

Armed with new information about painting snow, I launched a new round of changes to the snow colors.   I had learned that the color temperature guideline was binary - either warm light/cool shadow or cool light/warm shadow.    What I have learned since then is that one aspect of light can create an exception to the rule....transluscence.   For example, a brightly lit flower in a standard warm light/cool shadow scheme can emit a warm chroma from within the shaded throat of the flower if the petals are translucent.  

Similarly, snow has translucence and the light's refraction can disrupt the typical cool light/warm shadow scheme.    Shadows may have warm and cool hues (greens, blues, pinks) within the dominant shadow value. 

And then - it snowed!   With a snowy scene outside for reference and some tips on painting snow from the Stapleton Kearns blog, I reapplied my snow.   Here it is - finally - for your review and comment.

Winter Hike - Putney Mountain Road