We have an abundant depth to our snow cover here.  I was surprised to find just how far up the snow came up my legs ( and into my boots, might I add ) as I positioned myself for this painting.  It's all worth it in my way of thinking.  I seem to find myself skirting dangerously close to frigid moving water in the pursuit of just the right angle all too often.  Up one side, then back down stream, through brush and briers, ducking low hanging branches.  I visually frame the scene, consider my footing...test to check..mmh, am I on the bank, or cantilevered like a Frank Lloyd Wright architectural element just above the stream?  Then I set up.  Mumble about the fact that a mini chain saw would be nice to remove that last bit of annoying dead tree just ahead, and finally jump into my work.

This procedure is repeated with  regularity, somehow ensuring me that I have put the proper effort into finding just the right spot before I begin.  Of course after finishing and packing my things, a viewpoint just ten or fifteen feet from that very spot proves to be.... THE SPOT.

That's why there's tomorrow.

As promised in my last universal blog post, here is my image painted the very same afternoon.  Toootaallly different. (that's Totally for you foreign visitors).  So the plan was to  stay home and finish "business" stuff for the afternoon.  Then the clouds parted, a shaft of radiant sunlight landed on my workspace, and heavenly voices were suddenly heard.  What was I to do?  Let's see, taxes? Radiance! Taxes? Light!....(ok, the part about heavenly voices was added for narrative development)  taxes...aggh.... just a quick one...8 x10, no, 9 x 12...and, in a flash I was gone like the morning snowfall.

I climbed a nearby ridge to a familiar clearing, punctuated by cedars of all sizes.  I hadn't been back here for awhile and was surprised by the size which some of these little urchins grew.  I picked one tucked in a corner, laden with the freshly fallen snow, and the rest...you know.

It was a voice, said,... I think....taxes

It was a quick paint.  I already had a meeting scheduled for my taxes.

I think its just beautiful....the snow, I mean.  Its all around now.  Our nation's capitol was just blanketed.  Democrat or Republican, it didn't matter.  Both parties equally blessed and enveloped by the white stuff.  Must have been quite beautiful to have seen it fall.  White snow on white marble, covering all the blemishes and pavement in a pure clean layer of white. 

We too added to our totals.  Unlike DC, we here keep our accumulated snow around till spring.  New snowfalls resurface our exteriors with smaller but consistent layers.  My snowman kinda melted, then refroze headless.  His scarf is stuck in the refreeze but the fresh layer of white actual smoothed his round torso and he's looking healthier...albeit minus his head.  But the cool fresh layer did wonders.  A fresh start, a clean slate, a clear conscience...oh what that does for the soul.

So I headed out to our town park to paint in the falling snow.  It makes you feel like a kid.  The flakes piling high on everything.  I tilted my canvas toward me, held my palette inverted and enjoyed the experience that rewarded me with the canvas above.  Tomorrow I hope to bring you my second painting of the day, done in the afternoon after the clouds cleared and the sun made an appearance.

From where I sit, February couldn't have come at a better time.  I always say that winter painting is my favorite time to be out in the elements.  You know, the hush of the winter snow, as it dampens the sounds.  The stark stillness and accentuated contrast between "things" poking out of the white blanket.  Virgin ground as evidenced by pure white in all directions, except for those strange footprints headed in that direction.  It's usually the most private time out in the open.  Even in Minnesota, only the brave, the sporty, and the individuals whose car suddenly died are seen "enjoying" it's beauty.  But it's just been too chilly for me lately...since about mid December, as I remember.

So I leave you with this image here.  It's definitely not the white of the outdoors that caught my fancy, but the creamy white of a bavarian cream doughnut.  Actually I salute my friend and fellow painter Marc Hanson, and lift my coffee high to him.  Not only did he brave the cold outdoors to paint, but he did it when most of us were tucked under our covers for the evening.  Check it out on his blog post from last night.  Good job Marc!  Welcome February

Here is one of those times where you intend to change the look of a piece by working back into it...then have a change of mind to keep it as is.  This watercolor was an experiment in developing an edge between the painted portion and the paper itself.  This rumination was completed in the fields just south of my studio.  The idea was to capture the essence of the watercolor's freedom as it precipitated to form the image and replicate that in an arabesque to frame it in.  Simply put, I wanted a nice edge.

Currently in our bible study, we are working on "thoughts".  Big subject there, one I hope to share more on as we make our way.  "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he...", a thought God communicates to us in Proverbs 23.  Our thoughts pop out somewhere.  Part of that is my brush committed to paper or canvas.  So when I'm in Schalow's field with my brush out, and the thoughts are there and I dive in and I get a result.  Well I think I'll leave that one alone.

Maybe there is something to that "Minnesota Nice" stuff that we all hear about.  It was in evidence yesterday to me as we did our best and nicest to hand over the ball to the opposing team.  Where even FEMA failed to deliver, we here in Minnesota managed to "give" lavishly.  Well that's how I'm ending the season with a positive spin and a thought that we here contributed to the Saints, so that their season will run to it's full end.  What decent folk we are here!

Pictured above is a painting currently on view at the Edina Art Center.  It's one of those paintings I had in mind for a long time.  It was worked up from a plein air sketch done last winter and presents the beauty that can be found outdoors.  With the temperature's being so cold, it's hard to find water in the state of liquid, let alone the glowing colors of the low angled sun.  The effect was so temporal but left a lasting memory. 

As mentioned in my last post, the weather has been cooperative here in Minnesota.  We've been hovering in the mid twenties for highs and have had almost consistent cloud cover.  This dismal stretch of Siberian bleakness has dispirited a few who have sought and found solace in the fact the Vikings are still alive.  One can be glued to news to kept abreast of the latest update of statiscal game analysis.   Others have fled to warmer sunnier climates, but I find these melancholy days to be great for focusing on this blankness, and finding beauty outdoors.  You know, that's the space between heated environments.

Before painting the Cedar tree pictured here, I considered long and hard if it was a good candidate for study.  Its unruly branches going this way and that, covered in frost, alone in the tundra...ok, so I embellish a bit.  Anyway, the degree of separation value wise to it's surroundings was minimal at best.  The wild articulations would take a while to depict.  Sure it looked neat, but to say that in paint, well, that's another thing.

I decided to take the plunge.  I was amazed at how low in value the snow needed to be.  The frosty branches were even lower.  Lights and darks were entangled and interchanged, totally dependent on its neighbor's values to say if they were sky, or snow, light against dark.  All in all the battle was hard fought and the result very rewarding.

 We have been experiencing an unusual string of warmer days.  The warmer air is melting our snowpack and contributing moisture to the atmosphere resulting in gray and foggy days.  Such was the case today.  This cold saturated air is bedecking everything as if to prolong the Christmas season.  The trees this morning were wonderfully sugar coated.  I adjusted my schedule to allow myself the opportunity to commit to canvas some of the beauty I experienced.

It really clears the head to see all of nature arrayed in such a wonderfully odd way.  The ordinary becomes totally fascinating.  God's design in trees and shrubs, contrasted against the steel gray sky lifted me to the acclamation...how great Thou art!  The structure of the trees was like fine lace that revealed His love for art.

Me, I was just bumbling along.  That icy air started to interrupt my peace and I unfortunately began to get a bit reckless in my race to climb back into my car's interior and enjoy the creation from there.  Thankfully I did manage to get more paint on my canvas than in my car, but it was close.

Yes I shamelessly thought this headline might draw a few folks here that may not be interested in art but football.  I myself settled into my favorite recliner to enjoy our home team play "America's Team".  Congrats Vikes!

The game turned out rather one-sided, not the affair predicted, but such is life.  Would we all be issued uniforms and protective gear as we battle our foes--daily.  It seems to me that so much in everyday life comes down to battles we wage, mostly in our minds, to pursue those dreams and plans we taste in our tomorrow's.  The New Year brings the thought of taxes to my mind..Ugh.

So the day before the big game I had an errand to run downtown, I picked up my gear and enjoyed a paint in the park across the river from the city.  I was limited in my time, so the location by the Stone Arch Bridge was hastily selected.  Being already well into the day, long blue shadows dominated the ground plane, while the buildings already were partnered in purple tones.  The arches on the bridge punctuated cold dark shadows with shafts of the late day light.  Wow, that didn't last long.

Before I knew it, the sun was curtained by the slender buildings and my field of vision shrouded in the purplish haze.  All this a prophecy of Dallas being blanketed by the team from the North.

Can't say I thought any of this up till I started writing but who knows.  Let's see what I paint before the Saints.

As I promised yesterday in my blog, pictured here is the second painting from the same location as the barn.  It always seems to me that one of the hardest moments when painting on site is the interval of time when you cease working on the canvas and begin the process of clean-up and packing.  No matter how compact my equipment is, and no matter how few brushes I used during the painting process I can't seem to pack my gear fast enough before I realize certain human needs have been brushed aside.  Feelings of extreme cold, numb fingers, wet feet, growling stomach not to say fatigue.  It's the time when you suddenly realize that your focus on the newly finished painting has occupied all your thinking.  At times I want to just blink and be back at my studio.  The last thing I care to do is start another canvas.

But as you are loading your bag you look up and, "Viola", there another visual image calls to you.   Sometimes I am able to stuff that impulse and keep on packing.  At other times my mind pleads with me..."just this one time more,  You know this light affect may not come again....etc".

So out come the brushes.  Squirts of fresh paint recharge the palette, and off to the races for another time round the track.

Such was the case here.  I wiped off my brushes and took a firm grip of my palette, spoke to the Father, and looked towards the sun.