Dark Night Forests & Days of Snow

In these bitter cold nights, dreams of owls come to me. 

Slowly the days lengthen, but nights are snowy and long and full of 

creaks and snaps and the harmonic hum of a north wind 

through the hemlocks. 

It is here that my work still wanders - to trees swaying in the wind

 in the deep winter night. One thing led to another and the drawings 

took on a different shape, variations on a theme, explorations 

of what is possible. Some are both trees and marks, some, 

more marks than trees. 

I'm not sure where these are going. I made a lot of them. 

First small, then large. Some are unresolved. I could see them huge, 

but I am leaving them for the moment, needing to transition back 

to watercolors. 

The studio is warm and full of light. The issue with the heat seems to be 

fixed - fingers crossed!! I am enjoying long days there, working on balancing 

the demands of life and winter chores. Cold days mean many more trips to the 

woodshed to load wood into woodbin for the stove. 

One sunny day in the studio, 

a pinecone and its shadow caught my attention. 

Not wanting to spend too many hours outside these days, 

Pasha has discovered the little bed I put in the studio for him. 

The blizzard started Friday afternoon, Pasha and I were 

cozy in the studio, happily working (or snoozing) as the 

snow began to fall. 

On the worktable, a large-scale watercolor. I've had requests from 

two of the galleries I work with for larger work, and I've been wanting to 

work a bit larger, as well. I bumped up to a full sheet of watercolor paper, 

and it is a challenge with my technique of wet on wet and controlled bleeding. 

Really challenging. I'll continue to give it a whirl, working through the 

frustration, hoping for some results I am pleased with.  

By the time we headed for the house, the storm was in 

full-swing, snow collecting and winds blowing. Time 

to cook food and fill buckets just in case of a 

power outage. 

The morning view was impressive, that bump

through the trees is my car. 

I was completely unable to open the back door... so in lieu of 

trudging around the house with snowshoes, I took the glass out of 

the storm door and shoveled that way!

The old studio is completely buried in the snowplow pile.

After three hours of shoveling, I decided I'm leaving it!

Pasha navigates the trails. 

Out back, deep snow made shoveling quite a chore. 

...and the car.... a LONG time to dig that out!

I snowshoed over the deep snowpiles to the studio and shoveled 

back to the driveway. I hoped the plow would be back so I wouldn't need 

to commute in snowshoes until spring.  

Today was warm and beautiful and Pasha and I enjoyed our 

last rays ritual on the front stoop. He wasn't exactly a willing 

model for the camera....