Freezing Fog and Winter Streams

Overnight we had freezing fog and I woke up to see everything coated in white ice crystals.

For the third day we are under a Meteorological Alert issued for the area of a winter snow storm warning with up to 9" (22.9cm) of heavy, wet snow and a heavy rain warning together with possible flooding. With the sun making an appearance in the late afternoon the high reached 41F (5C).















After doing the barn chores I went for a walk around the track and took a number of photographs of the ice covered trees.

I thought I would do a couple of sketches of streams with winter trees coated with ice much like the scenes I had on the property.















Winter Reflections 1

For my first drawing I put in the river and then added in the snow covered banks. From there I added some grasses and growies onto the river banks coming up out of the snow.

Next I went in and put the tree trunks and branches along the shore and added them faintly into the distant hills.















Winter Stream 1

For my second drawing I wanted to do one of the wetland at the S bend at the bottom of the property, where there are cattails growing.

I put in the stream followed by the snow covered banks against the water. Next I added the trees onto the land and some of the dead, dried cattails at the edge of the wetland.

Winter Creek 2 and 3 - Two Works in Progress

Last night Environment Canada posted a Meteorological Alert for freezing rain.

The storm began early this morning and is to continue into tomorrow afternoon.

Today I spent most of the day in the barn making sure Tai and Chi would be comfortable in deeply bedded stalls, with full buckets of water and plenty of hay to keep them occupied since they would be inside for the next couple of days.

Since I wasn't going to go out anywhere today I thought I would work on these two paintings that I had started last year (see post on 15 September 2016).














For the first one I used French ultramarine blue for the sky leaving a few areas of white paper for clouds.

Next I darkened the blue slightly and added a little bit of Antwerp blue and then brushed it in the water.

I also used it for the sky in the second painting.

I added a touch of burnt sienna to the blue mixture to grey the colour slightly and added a few horizontal streaks of this colour into the water.

I changed the name of this painting from River 1 to Winter Creek 3

Then I set this painting aside to dry.














I changed the name of this painting from River 2 to Winter Creek 2.

Next I added a touch of alizarin crimson to the grey mix and painted in the distant hills and the water.

I will post each of these paintings at a later date once they have been completed.

Frozen Marsh - A Work in Progress

The day started off clear and very cold 0F (-18C) and with the wind chill it felt like -17F (-27C). I am concerned about my cat Junkyard. The last time he was in the barn was on New Year's Day and he had scraped a lot of skin off his left hind leg and it is not like him to miss a meal much less for more than a couple of days. Hopefully he is just out being a Casanova.

This afternoon I was in a class with Lucy Manley at the Kawartha Artists’ Gallery and Studio. What was interesting and a pleasant surprise was that the subject for the class was a winter scene of a marsh.

Yesterday I was out taking photographs of a world coated in thick ice after the freezing rain storm of the night before. Some of the pictures were of a section of the Snelgrove Brook which runs through the back of my property, so I was able to use my own reference material.














When I left the Gallery it had clouded over and was starting to snow. The wind had died down a little, but the cold remained and the high for the day was 7F (-14C) with the wind chill making it feet like -9F (-23C). Needless to say, I am not looking forward to the continuing cold weather forecast for this week.

I will post this painting at a later date as more work on it has been completed.

Thank you for coming to look at my artwork and I hope you will return often.

Frozen Barns

Today we hung works by eight members of the Buckhorn Artists' Group at Showplace Performance Centre in Peterborough. The show will run from 02-28 February 2010.

I have a solo exhibit of my paintings at Showplace in April of this year, and I will post more information about it closer to the time of the show.

The painting I am exhibiting with the Buckhorn Artists' Group is Frozen Barns, an original 22" x 30" framed, watercolour painting available for $980.00.














Please excuse the reflections that appear on the picture of the painting but I had framed it before I took a photograph of it.

The cold weather brings back memories of when I started this painting of my barns. It had been a cold winter day and many of the roads were closed due to the freezing rain we had overnight and continued throughout the morning. The tree branches and grasses were coated in glittering armour made of ice, which crackled as the wind blew. Just for a moment a ray of sunlight managed to force its way through the storm clouds to brighten the snow bank before the barn.

Thank you for coming to look at my artwork.