Late Snow, Frisbee Hill

Painted as the last snow melted in March 2006, I hit the jackpot with this 12x9 pastel on Wallis paper. This painting won the "Best of Show" award at the Suburban Rochester Art Group Show in July, 2006. I was set up on Frisbee Hill in Greece, looking up at the patchy melting snow. I was really attracted to the shadows falling across the snow. Interestingly, this painting was just not working out, and after about an hour I was close to giving up. I was overworking and over-blending the surface and just not achieving the kind of broken light effect that I was seeing.

Fortunately, at that point I just decided "what the heck", that I would keep at it and just try to make a series of broken strokes and then not touch them. From then on the painting seemed to paint itself. I've heard others say that about paintings, but don't think I had ever experienced it before.

A funny corollary to this - when I entered this painting in the show, I actually seriously thought it had a good chance of winning Best of Show. I rarely think my paintings are very good, but this one just seemed to have it. I also entered the painting in the previous post (Irondequoit Marina, Late Winter). At the awards reception, the Best of Show was announced...as being for the Irondequoit Marina painting! I accepted the award but couldn't believe that anyone would pick that painting over this one. The ribbon hung on that painting for over a week, before someone realized the mistake...a simple transcription error had been made during the judging.