Probably the last plein air snow painting until November (hopefully! though you're never safe until May around here!). I did this one on March 8 or 9. The location is a farm field across from my house. I've looked at this scene for 7 years and thought there were painting possibilities, but my previous attempts generally haven't turned out too well. Then, one evening near sunset my wife and I were walking through the field and I was captivated by the color contrasts as the warm evening light lit up the trees and snow. It was too late to paint that day, so I had to hope for similar conditions before all the snow melted. Fortunately, the next day was clear and as the evening approached I knew I'd get similar light conditions. So off I went.
The only problem was wind...a weather front was approaching and the winds were gusting over 30 mph. Almost blew my easel over a few times, and the wind chill was pretty nasty despite temperatures in the low 40s. Of course, the previous evening had been completely calm! Anyway, I was going to finish the painting no matter what! I thought it looked pretty good on site, but wasn't sure because there was so much orange light out there. When I got inside I was pretty happy with it. The subtle colors didn't reproduce very well in the scan, so it doesn't look as good as the actual painting. I'm quite satisfied and am thinking about working up a larger studio painting from this one, which is 6x12 oil on canvas board.
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