Learning from the Masters

 

With such a stupendous, amazing, ethereal, devilish snow as we are undergoing, I simply have to pay homage to Mother Nature.

This is our second blockbuster storm--all records broken--and it has been amazing to watch it unfold. The screens on our windows look like white dotted Swiss Organza. The usually rolling green yard has taken on the appearance of drifting sand dunes in Africa. The pond is smothered ice and snow and I wonder how our little pond frog is holding up. The denuded bushes look like cotton plants you would find in the South.

And all of this reminds me of an exhibition I saw at the Philips Gallery in Washington DC, over ten years ago.

Impressionists in Winter  Effets de Neige

It was an extraordinary exhibition; a life experience one would never forget. This winter wonderland of paintings was a result of six painters (Monet, Caillebotte, Pissarro, Gauguin, Sisley and Renoir) fascinated with the light as reflected upon the snows from two extraordinary winters in Paris.  During the winters of 1879-80 and 1890-91 the Seine froze solid. Imagine painting plein air in such conditions. The results were breathtaking.
I took a challenge to learn a smidgen of how to paint snow. My painting of choice was by Sisley,

Snow at Loouveciennes

 

This painting hangs over our white brick fireplace every winter.

 

  The photo below was taken with a Holga camera of the Havre de Grace Wharf two days ago.
Talk about colors in snow!!!

 

 

As I close this little blog off, it is still a blizzard and everything in our yard from planters, to sculptures, to mailbox are obliterated, mute white statues....until 

Thaw Time, Some Time