Deep and Dark December

This last month my Artist's Magazine had an article about painting snow. I realized I hadn't tried that yet with my markers, so I decided to give it a try. In the article, there were two paintings that I especially loved. The first was on the cover, and I loved the style and the bright colors. Unfortunately this version I found on the internet doesn't portray the colors very well, but there were a lot of bright blues and oranges, to which I've always been attracted. It is "View From the Air, A Passing Cloud" by Stephen Quiller.

 The second was a much less grand scene, but no less captivating. It showed a small glimps of a forest in winter, and looking at it you can feel the stillness of the winter air, almost as if you were there. As you probalby know, I've always loved paintings and photos of trees, and this one was especially captivating. It is titled "Winter Interior" by T. Allen Lawson. I could just sit and stare at this all day:



































So for my experiment in drawing snow, I combined elements from both of these paintings. Since I don't have any photos of winter scenes readily on hand, I loosely based my drawing on the tree painting, and my color scheme and loose style on the mountain painting. Part of that was because my gray marker was running out..which was actually kind of fortunate so I had to pursue other avenues for my colors. It turned out great! As usual, the colors aren't completely accurate in this photo, and the sky actually blends together much better to the naked eye than it does here. Also, I swear there is not any purple on the foreground trees, so I don't know why it's showing a purple squiggle at the bottom of that first tree; and the sky is lighter and warmer than shown here. But it's not too bad.

























This feels like a scene you might find up Cedar Mountain near where I grew up, and I can practically smell the fresh mountain air. It feels like a warmer day several days after the snow had fallen, hence no snow on the trees themselves. I'm reminded of the ski trips we went on in middle school (the only six times I've ever been skiing.) I had to restrain myself from adding more details to the trees, because I was trying to keep it as loose as the styles I admire, rather than overworking it like I usually do. At first I had started drawing people too, but I decided I just wanted a landscape this time.
What do you think?