Painting Snow

I’ve been painting snow
It wasn’t planned. None of the paintings were primarily about snow. The main focus of each painting was about something other than snow.
On January 1st I began painting daily.
It wasn’t planned, it was simply time to begin painting. Despite being a professional illustrator for 35+ years, it’s the first time in my life I’ve painted every day for months, creating images of my choosing — not what a client was paying me to create.
The midwest, where I live, we have four seasons. The geometry of our seasons is changing dramatically. There is no gradual on-ramp to spring, it arrives suddenly and full-blown, like a window shade snapping up unexpectedly. Bulbs push up from ground no longer frozen. Lady Admiral and cabbage white butterflies appear searching for nectar sources. Returning songbirds want fresh water for their daily baths. Arrows of geese fly north honking and gossiping. Great flocks of sandhill cranes return from southern states to start new families in their favorite wetlands. Sweet tender buds appear on trees and shrubs. Perfect rains keep everything watered and hydrated. Yes, the air smells sweet.
Then BAM! The extreme temperatures of midwest summers descend without warning blanketing us with almost unbearable heat and humidity. Our bodies do not have time to adapt. Rain seldom falls. Last summer I made what felt like a selfish and painfully expensive choice to water my gardens every few days. Several months later I decided to stop watering and wait for Darwin’s Survival of the Fittest theory to take over. I’m still not sure which plants survived last summer’s waterless culling and brutal heat.
The transition into fall happens at a pace that feels more manageable. Beautiful cool bright days and nights linger longer and longer each year. I was able to do some serious yard work and house painting until mid-November.
Winter comes on slowly. Cruel 20 below wind chills arrive in late January, but never stays too long. It can be unbearably cold in our houses. My daughter and I joke about how many layers we must wear in our homes we can only, and just barely, afford to keep heated to an incredibly chilly 66 degrees.

But…Snow
I began painting daily on January 1st. After a few weeks I had run out of interesting reference photos. I needed fresh inspiration.
Careful observation of the world around me is one of my mindful practices. I’m fascinated by what I see out every window in my new/old house. I’d not lived in a town with curbs, gutters, sidewalks, and alleys since college 35+ years ago.

I’m Painting a Lot of Snow
The views from inside looking out of my house at dawn, dusk, and deep night are fascinating. That’s what I’m painting, in the winter, in the midwest. Snow has become a huge character in my recent paintings. Initially I thought the sky was going to be a big character. In some paintings she is, in other paintings, she doesn’t even appear.
The night sky is back! I fell in love with painting the night sky in college. As a professional illustrator I used the night sky as a backdrop or to help tell the non-verbal story of an illustration as often as I was able. It didn’t happen often enough. To take the leash off and paint the night sky as juicy, rich and, as delicious as my heart’s desire, meeee — yowh!

Light and crisp shadows are big characters in my new paintings. Clear, contrasting colors and the contrast between inside and outside are also important in my new series of paintings. The use of a very limited color palette has been a wonderful boundary to work within. Thirteen small jars of different colored house paint are all I’ve needed so far to mix every single color necessary to make my paintings. When the season changes I’ll need to add a few more colors to my palette. It hasn’t happened yet.
Now, my in-town world is snow.
It’s important that my paintings are strong, clear, clean, and beautifully executed while still being loose. I’m mindful of the primary focal point and how I want the viewer’s eyes to move around each new painting. I’m mindful of the brightest and darkest points in each painting. I’m mindful of the point-of-view.
When making your own art it can be anything you want it to be, you are the supreme ruler of your universe — unless you’re working as a professional illustrator — when your primary mandate is to successfully pull the desired image from the client’s brain, create it in the material world for their precise need or pleasure and your profit.
I can, and you can too, change anything in our paintings. 35+ years of being a single mom, self-employed illustrator taught me to be super fast and good at rendering recognizable imagery. Creating a compelling composition is almost as automatic. Knowing how to make something pop or recede is second nature. Knowing when a piece is finished is a skill too. I always know and never second guess my decision.

The Simplicity of Snow as a Landscape Element
I’ve spent decades making illustrations to educate people about the natural world, its critters, plants, hydrology, geology, human history, and ecosystems.
No, I did not illustrate books — not mostly.
There was seldom snow in what I was illustrating. Now, elegant, glowing simple snow softly blankets most horizontal surfaces. Lavender-colored snow languidly rests in and on everything. Bright clear whites are few and far between, snapping and popping in each painting.
The world is a horrifying place right now. I spend time every morning watching the news, and then I turn it off. Some days I spend time considering the sheer folly of what I’m doing by spending the bulk of my time making paintings. Will I be weeping as I bag groceries in the local quick mart next fall because in the mess of our economy no one could or would buy paintings?
It could happen.

I’ll know next fall if I need to get a job. Until then I won’t worry and instead sink deeply, madly, and fully into the joy of painting exactly what I want to paint every day.

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