Art Journal

After the large snowstorm last Sunday and two days of cold snowy weather, by Tuesday we got a warmer day and most of the spring snow had melted. And then on Wednesday forecasts were predicting another snow dump on us for Wednesday night, starting with a front moving in around 3 in the afternoon with rain starting and turning to snow. Knowing this I figured I had a chance to get in one painting in the afternoon before the weather turned too bad. This is another one from the car, done along a country road near my home. There was a little pull-off area where I could sit and paint east, looking down the road. It was getting pretty gray by then and the sun was getting through only occasionally. Sure enough, by yesterday morning we had a good 12 inches of new snow, and the few daffodils that hadn't been flattened are smashed down now.

Recently I received the book by John Pototschnik  called unlimited color which is about using a limited pakette which I tried out in this painting. I used ultramarine blue, transparent oxide red and naples yellow plus titanium white, and did everything with those four colors, in what he would call an equilateral triad scheme. It was interesting to work with a weird palette like this and see what I could get. It wasn't a great choice for making green colors, but I thought it should work since everything is mostly still brown around here.

Down the Road, 8 x 10.