Midwinter Blues (and Greens)

I always think of January as being 'way down in the winter' but in reality, we're only just a little way into winter since winter officially begins just before Christmas.  So we won't actually be  'way down in the winter until late February or early March. 

Around Christmas,

I always think about painting evergreens.  I think, like most of us, I tend to want to paint pines as triangles, like Christmas trees that have been carefully pruned and shaped to the perfect Christmas tree form.  It's stuck in our heads from Kindergarten, triangle trees with five-pointed stars, holly leaves with exactly 3 berries.  We have been trained.  And we remember our training.  And it is so, so difficult to make ourselves break out of that box.  This painting of evergreens and snow is one of my favorites.  I painted it several years ago after a week-long watercolor workshop with Sterling Edwards.  He made us think about how evergreens grow, how, if the top is broken off, the second branch will take over the top position and the tree will always maintain it's pointed shape.  Yes, they do exhibit a rather rough triangular shape, but ragged, uneven, with gaps between the branches, places where other trees have interfered with growth or deer have nibbled away the lower branches. Life has just happened.

This morning,

before life had a chance to intervene, I opened a little box of Williamsburg iridescent oil paints that were given to me at the Art Box.  Delicate shades of Iridescent Blue, Iridescent Gold and Iridescent Pearl and with a touch of Winsor viridian and cobalt blue and a bit of Indian red, this ragged little tree sort of grew.  It's just a little 3 x 4 canvas, and  I used too much medium and a tiny flat sable brush. But it was fun. And it is art.  And I have started my day on an encouraging note.  I think it's important to begin each day with something meaningful, be it a prayer, an almost perfect omelet, or a tiny painting of a snow-tipped evergreen.

Carole