(C) 2018 Dale DiMauro

This is in essence, a plein air watercolor, painted through my window last December. My art mentor Gerard Doucette thought I should add some finishing touches. Basically, I recall him suggesting that I should sharpen up the values so that the forms are clear with crisp edges in a painterly fashion.

Around this period I started pre-staining my watercolor sheets when I thought it was relevant to the outcome. In this case the paper was stained with quinacridone yellow to give an overall sense of warmth which snow in the light reveals.

When you paint outside, at least in Vermont, during the growing season, most of the foliage has some degree  of green to it. As a result, during this time of year, I am considering pre-staining some of my plein air paintings in the cooler spectrum of blue to green. This way I can establish a cool base to start from and simultaneously get rid of the bright white of the paper which I do not associate the summer with.