Tip of the month – February 2010

In January this year, we decided to go to the mountains rather than the beach. We returned to Mount Sutton where we are each summer for the vacation workshops. Apart from the obvious differences of a cover of snow versus sun and sand, I found a beauty like I have never seen before in my lifetime.

While I was there, my goal was to visit the sites that I usually see in the summer months.

In the painting on the left, the blue-violet mountain is Mount Sutton where we are located in July. This barn is a wonderful red color and in the summer, the red is more vibrant in the surrounding green. On a gray day in January, the barn appears devoid of color. It is still red, but the moist atmosphere and the incredible whiteness of the snow seamed to rob it of its color.

Mount Sutton is experiencing a lot of fog this winter and everything that I looked at was influenced by this condition.

This birch tree is on the lawn of the inn where people relax before and after dinner. I think of it as a survivor. After the snow and ice this January, I think that this tree is a hero.

This is the road to the upper meadow. We often sketch from here. This January, the trees were bent with the weight of the snow and ice forming a portal to walk through. There was no evident wind, but there was a little movement in the air. Some of the branches made a soft sound like tinkling glass.

Last summer, I painted this scene in the upper meadow. The day that I visited the upper meadow in January, the sky was a solid opaque gray and the only sound was of my footsteps crunching the snow. All the branches were encased in snow and ice. The photo tells the story.

The upper pond is one of my favorite sites for the study of water reflections. In January, it was a good site for the study of cast shadows. I returned here each day during the time I was on the mountain. There was no wind. Every day there was a new condition, sun, clouds, snow flurries.

I painted this work of the lower pond one afternoon in July a few years ago. In January, the pond was covered with a blanket of pristine snow. Every branch and every twig on the trees surrounding the pond was coated in snow and ice. This frozen world was magical.

This painting is of a crystal clear mountain stream located in Dunkin. In some places, the water tumbles over the rocks and in other places, it forms quiet reflecting pools. In the winter, the same view shows a field of snow with a gap caused by the moving water beneath it. Visiting a favorite site at different times of day, in different seasons is truly amazing. Try it.

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