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| Bloomfield Street 14x18 Oil by Michael Chesley Johnson Available - Special Pricing for a Short Time! (Includes frame and shipping to continental US) |
You'd think snow this deep would last weeks, but that's not the case here in my part of New Mexico. Four inches of heavy, wet snow lasts maybe a day or two in the intense sun of late winter. Because of the generally low humidity, however, it will persist in shaded spots--sometimes for a month! Right now, the snow depicted in the painting above is mostly gone, except for a scrap here and there, tucked into the shadows.
All that is an explanation of why this painting was made from a photograph. Trina and I were driving through our town, came to a stop sign, and there it was: my favorite stone house, surrounded by Lombardy poplars. The shadows on the snow were a lovely blue; the house, built a long time ago of the local sandstone, shone yellow; and the underbelly of the tree tops glowed with a subtle warmth. So, I snapped a photo, knowing it wasn't possible to paint this scene en plein air. I knew the snow would soon melt, and I felt comfortable painting this scene from a photo because I've painted many, many snow paintings over the years.
Back in the studio, I got to work. For those of you curious about color palettes, it felt right to go with mostly earth colors. I used only burnt sienna, yellow ochre and Prussian blue, plus a little naphthol red to intensify the bounced light in the trees. (These are all Gamblin colors.)
You can see a much larger version of this painting here.
