winter deep

winter deep in January

Tree trunks and branches mostly provide colors now.  Much else is covered with snow.  Trees in the far distance lose their color and become sky or snow; it is hard to tell which sometimes.  This kind of deep-January scene can be interesting drama:  the ins and outs of distance and middle distances, the snow white lines that are either field or branch, the movable horizon (where is the horizon?).  Is that a telephone pole, or is it a fence post?    Why does the color shift there?  Any conclusions that I settle upon:  these conclusions seem to shift the next moment.  And the shifts cause more movement out there, then more responses from me.  Such activity!

When I painted this small landscape, the image became abstract early and kept veering quite abstract quite often.  Still, I tried to show some distance and some details, and I consulted my sketch several times to do so.  I like the sense of activity in the finished work, a sense of actor--liness maybe, from a scene that at first seemed quite quiet.

How is your winter going?