Snow Day

I suppose that title makes this a bit of a fantasy piece - while we have snow on the ground, it's only a bare covering of hard crusty stuff right now. Truth be told, there was no snow in the photo I used for Billy here - it was taken back in October for an idea I originally had for an autumn painting. At least it's not the middle of summer this time when I'm painting the white stuff! I am playing with a few titles for this one. I thought of "Powder" but that's not quite the feeling I'm going for - and I have a painting called "Power." Of course, I also have paintings called "Fresh Snow," "Snowbounding" and "Snowbaby". I'm running out of snow titles!

It was a little fun with this piece to find a balance between control and freedom. My underpainting wasn't highly detailed, but it was still an underpainting. The drawing was done much more carefully than those of my daily paintings. The snow and his furry coat worked well painted loosely. I was hoping to give the feeling of him galloping through nice fresh powder over the smooth, undisturbed surface. It's at the point where I will let it sit and dry, likely look at every day as I walk past it, and hope I'm prepared to sign it and call it done in about a week! This is 8 x 10 oil on Raphael linen panel and I used a limited palette of Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna, Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Lemon and a touch of Burnt Umber.

Time to move on to the next one, and keep up this momentum! I have a show to get ready for tomorrow, and then I'll be busy with said show Saturday and Sunday, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to paint. Hopefully, I'll find time somewhere in there!