Mid Winter

This little 8x10 oil was done sometime in January or February 2007. I remember it well...a group of us were supposed to meet at Northampton Park but it was snowing and the paintout was cancelled. I decided to go anyway because the park is only a couple of miles from home. So I painted by myself, which was OK, but I later found out that I forgot to notify one of the group that the meeting was cancelled. Turns out he drove 45 minutes and found no one there (I was painting elsewhere by that time). Felt terrible about that!

Anyway, it snowed on and off so I set up under some pine trees, which blocked some of the snow. But it still got all over my palette and made the paint difficult to work with. They say you can use oil paints in rain or snow, and it's true to a point...but when snow starts getting mixed into the paint it forms an almost unworkable blob.

I feel this painting captures the coldness of a day in mid winter...yet there's just a subtle warmth in the sky (particularly along the horizon) that hints of warmer days to come. Not a great painting in terms of composition or paint handling, but it does capture the feeling of that day.