In the bleak midwinter, this title is ambiguous. Am I searching for the feel of summer sunshine, or are the vines reaching out their pale yellowed arms to the weaker warmth of winter sun?

Funny how often I find interesting things to paint in other people’s photographs, and Searching for Summer is one of those. Reference given by KreativeK aka Kay at WetCanvas, as a part of a weekly drawing and painting event.

What enticed me here was the possibility to have really fun with the shadows. There were all sorts of reflected lights in them, and also on the wall in sunlight. The yellowy leaves of this Sweet Potato Vine bounced yellow all over the place, and the magenta of the window offered a beautiful spot of complementary colour to the yellow-greens.

In the below picture, I show my progress from underpainting to almost finished.

Well, I thought I had finished it, but then discovered that I’d painted the middle section of shadows too straight, almost as straight as the cast shadow from the shutter. In the ref, there was an object hanging among the “green stuff”, which I didn’t paint, but I simply forgot to consider the shadow. Couldn’t have that, so I repainted the edge of the shadow to a way more interesting pattern, one that leaves would create. Sometimes, one can focus so much on one aspect that another just doesn't enter one's mind.

The method of painting light with colour allows me to take an ordinary pretty scene and make it a symphony of colours. My mission, if you will, in painting is to show the beauty in the ordinary.

A larger image of the finished painting is in this clickable link.