Winter is back!

(C) 2015 Dale DiMauro

With dangerously low temperatures returning, with a vengeance, I must add, this little watercolor reminds me of the Vermont winter. It has the stark silhouette of hardwood trees, the feel of long winter shadows and the cool blue snow in the foreground with the accumulating frost and thaw cycles. I must add the late afternoon sun does not warm it up much.

With the forecast in Brattleboro, Vermont, expected to reach a low of thirteen below tonight, I figured this watercolor I did over a year ago expresses all of that. While it is small(9" x 12") it has great impact in feel of temperature extremes. Even the evergreen in front has a foreboding quality. It also has that rural half-kept up quality. Years of weathering cold, snow, rain etc., have given it character you can't create. The occupants may have given up on gutters years ago, the stairs do not appear to have been shoveled in a while or they simply gave up on using the front entrance altogether.

What I do like about painting winter scenes is the opportunity to use many different kinds of blue pigments. Blue is the most used color on my palette. The snow is a variation on cobalt and ultramarine blue, while the sky in this case is largely phthalocyanine blue.