Winter Plein Air Painting - Getting Ready!

I'm looking forward to winter painting camp, sponsored by the Grand Marais Art Colony. I did it last year and it was a fine treat, and I came home with some nice paintings. It takes a different kind of planning and packing to paint in pastels outside on a frozen lake in northern Minnesota! Some of the things I've learned: snow-pants are a good thing; use chemical hand-warmers, in mittens and in boots; get fingerless mittens that let you expose your thumb, to get good control of the pastel; pastel sticks are VERY cold to hold, keep that hand warmer, er, handy.

The good news is that there are no bugs when it's 10 degrees!

It snowed all day yesterday, big, puffy flakes, but the sky was supposed to clear overnight. When I woke up at two AM, a little voice said, "Look out the window". The not yet full moon was shimmering on the snow, casting long shadows. Beautiful! I paint the moon in all seasons and phases, but the full moon is my favorite. No painting last night, it was back to bed for me. But I know there'll be more. Paintings and moons.

Painting in series - Fresh Snow

Sometimes a subject is so inspiring that one painting is not enough. So it was with a stand of conifers in the snow. The original painting was true to the scene, won an award and was quickly purchased (the first of many paintings this collector now owns). It was so lovely, I wanted to do more. So I painted a series of "minis" inspired by the same scene. Each was 6x4 inches, all sold but are available as prints and very popular note cards.