Taking a walk in the park surrounding a manor, (Tyresö slott near Stockholm, Sweden) during one of the few sunny days in this unusually cold and snowy winter, I came upon this cottage, nestled in comfortably by snow and trees. While not a perfect scene, I saw some potentialities for a painting, and took some pictures.

Reference image:



Now, this is far from a perfect ref, so let's see what can be done with it. I really didn't like the straight dark band of distant land crossing the picture from left to right, the shape is quite boring, and separates the picture in two halves. I started to play with it in the small format of Notan, where I worked out how to place the darks and the lights, finding good relationships and interesting shapes. The first notan in top left is just an exploration of the actual image:



I simplify the Notan progressively, and in the middle row, rightmost picture, I'm starting to find what feels right. I still have to find a way to anchor the darker shapes to either the top or the bottom of the picture. I try bottom first, and that works fine. The notan marked with an arrow is the one I choose as a basis for the painting.

Next the 'cartoon drawing' was made on the artist's quality sandpaper, which was then blocked in with the underpainting. Follow the progress here:


The painting took over, and decided it wanted a stream instead of a road, in stage 2. Evaluating the image, I found the stream lead too quickly to the house in a boring straight line, so before continuing, I changed the shape of the banks, and worked a bit further on the background copse of winterbare trees. In stage 3, I have decided that the foreground trees need a softer approach than bare branches would be, so I add dried and browned clusters of leaves. Only in stage four do I scumble nearly white pastels over the snow, to give the coolness and whiteness of snow.

I've made an effort to keep the simple structure from the Notan, and here is how the finished painting in black and white looks side by side with the Notan:



Quite close, although I instituted a row of lower bushes to the mid left, to provide more depth in the painting.

Now, this is a fairly large painting, and details vanish when shrunk to such a small picture as seen on your computer screen. This detail shows how the blue of the sky is actually woven together with not only blues, but also greens and purples. This weaving is part of why my paintings can be called Impressionist:



When comparing with the largest picture of the painting, can you find from which part of the sky this closeup is taken?

You know that luminously muted glow of light on a nearly still lake, with whisps of mist dancing over the water. In Sweden, we say it is the elves that dance on the water. A very magical feeling.

This one is made with PanPastels (pastels that look and work like 'dry watercolour'). The effect in real life is more luminous and soft, giving the painting a glow and a sense of dreamy mystique. Photographs of paintings often don't do them full justice, and this one was a bit tricky to capture.

See my articles on the PanPastels, if you're curious to know more about them.

A large image of the painting is here.

And here is another of my PanPastel paintings, With a View.

Dear readers, here is one of the paintings you could read about in my early February (2010) newsletter. The changes have been made, and it is finished. This is one of the main bridges in Stockholm, Sweden, connecting the northern parts of the city with the southern parts spanning the Lake Mälaren which bisects Stockholm.

I was attracted to the light (no surprise there!) as it painted parts of the bridge in gold, making the struts resemble a giant harp vibrating a melody of sparkling dripping light.

In the below composite image, I show how it grew forth, from a rough underpainting where the major masses were blocked in, to the finished painting. Paper is ArtSpectrum Colourfix, and pastels are mostly Unisons, with a finishing highlight or two of Schmincke:



Click here to see a large version of the painting.