The sketching habit is an important part of an artists’ routine. Many sketches can be produced for any single painting. Most are exploratory and are rarely seen by anyone other than the artist. Some of the many sketches that are produced have a freshness and appeal all their own, and are so nice, it will be hard improve on them by painting a larger work. Two that I produced recently seem to fit this category.

Both of these sketches reflect my own thinking on the coming of the end of winter. In this time of the year when winter is more than half over and the days are noticeably longer, I often start thinking of and anticipating the coming of Spring. To be sure, here in Vermont, winter is not necessarily over on March 21, just because the calendar says so. It is not unusual to have some of our worst snowstorms in March and even after the spring equinox. Still, the brightening and lengthening of the days is a welcome sign that winter will indeed end!

Both sketches were executed very quickly.

The first one is about late winter melting - when the ground starts to re-appear from under all the snow. On its return in spring, the earth is brown - brown mud, brown grass, brown weeds and in some places, leftover brown leaves from the fall. This sketch captures the receding snow, the appearance of the earth and the warming light and trees in their post-winter, pre-bud state. To me the sketch feels like the anticipation of spring when it is still cold out, but the sunlight feels warm anyway.

The second sketch is of a time farther into the calendar - late April or early May in this part of Vermont. The snow is gone and won’t return again until late in the year. Streams are full of winter melt and are running strong while the landscape is greening up nicely. This little sketch I think nicely portrays the flowing but still cold water of a country stream, filling up onto the banks with the melted snow.

On January 23, I left a post about a new work that was on the board. That post was a somewhat detailed description and illustration of the process of creating a new painting. It included a number of sketches, both in pencil and in watercolor.

Well, the work is finally finished and is presented below - or I should say one version is finished. More on that below.

This watercolor painting is titled “West of Tinkham” and is 9″ h x 13″ w. It is so named simply because the original pencil sketch, made in November 2005, has a note “On Myers Road, west of Tinkham”. This place in Shaftsbury, Vermont is a favorite sketching area of mine. The area is very rural with both a great deal of forested land as well as many open, rolling fields. I enjoy the look of rolling fields in winter. When one thinks of a blanket of snow, the tendency is to think in terms of the whole surface of the earth covered in a uniform layer of snow which covers everything. Even in this snowy part of the world, unless there is a substantial amount of the stuff, the earth generally shows through here and there. For the painting, the task was to create the feeling of those rolling fields and forested hills while also creating a well balanced, well designed watercolor painting.

My earlier post indicated that I expected to finish the work within a week. As often happens, the work took longer than expected. While working on this a painting, there are many short burst of intense “brush and paint to paper” work, and many longer periods of staring at the work while evaluating it - such as it was at each level of completion.

As mentioned above, the point was to create a feeling and mood, in the context of a well designed work. Winter scenes always present a unique design challenge in balancing the values of the various passages - for the most part, winter landscape paintings will always include both whites and very dark darks along with the mid values. As I see it, there must either be more white or more dark with enough mid-value areas to stabilize the value structure. The sky, distant background and dark areas that represent forested land all went in quickly. Then came the non-snow covered fields. Initially, only the immediate foreground, the middle-left field and a small patch of visible earth on the distant far-left field were painted in. The remaining snow-covered fields appeared very stark and empty. I added some subtle, light washes to the snow covered areas in order to tone them down and unify them with the rest of the work. While it helped, it was not enough. Over the course of the past week, I have continued to carefully place additional areas of brown earth - starting first in smaller areas - first the distant field in the upper right, then the closer field in the upper left. Finally, touches of earth showing through on the far distant middle field were added along with some dry brush work in the foreground field on the left. Compare the treatment of these areas to the color sketches in the earlier post.

At the beginning of this post, I remarked that this painting is one version of the painting. It is often the case that a sketch or series of sketches will inspire more than one painting. This is likely the case for this particular series. As mentioned, this is a smaller work. I had in mind the idea that this composition was a good basis for a larger work. In addition, in working through the sketches, several different color schemes seemed to work as well as this one. While the next version is not on the board at the moment, there are likely others to come.

Three of my works included have been included in an exhibit at the Bennington Center for the Arts. The annual exhibit includes work of nineteen Bennington, Vermont area artists. This year’s exhibit inlcudes the work of nineteen local artists and features paintings, sculpture, and jewelry. The exhibit will be on display from February 1 through May 26. The exhibit reception will be Saturday, February 16 from 5 to 7 pm and is open to the public.

My three works include two recent studio works and an older plein aire painting.

“Front Garden Lily”

This painting is one of the many florals that I produce during the spring and summer as my wifes perennial garden cycles through its many varieties. Lilies dominate the gardens in mid-summer and become the subject of lots of sketches and paintings. Like many of my floral works, this one is a small work - 7″ x 9″. Many artists make large, flamboyant works out of floral compositions. For florals, I prefer smaller, intimate works that draw you close, and provide the sensation that you see the garden “eye to eye”.

“Westward”

This painting was inspired by the view looking west over the rolling hills and low mountain ranges in western Vermont and eastern New York. It is 9″ x 13″ in size. Summer is a delight in this part of the world - warm days with just enough humidity to make it feel like summer - days right out of a story book. This painting is feels like a Vermont story book summer day.

“River Bend”

River Bend is very different from the Westward and Front Garden Lily in a number of ways, it is a somewhat older work, was painted plein aire on a full sheet. It was painted on location on the upper Hudson River. Being a plein aire work, its technique is very direct and energetic. When working outdoors, weather conditions affect the technique. The rate of drying is usually significantly faster than in the studio. Using plenty of water is key, as is working quickly and decisively.

The Bennington Center for the Arts is located at 44 Gypsy Lane in Bennington, and Arts brings world-class fine art, history and theatre to the residents and visitors of Southeastern Vermont. The Center’s permanent art collection, sales exhibitions, live theatre by Oldcastle Theatre Company and exhibits within the Covered Bridge Museum are available to visitors throughout the year. Art exhibitions and theatre productions are constantly changing, so please check back frequently and visit often…