Merry Merry Christmas!

 Merry Christmas!

Hope you are having a great day.

This is a scheduled post.

The kids will leave later this morning to go to the other parents for the day, so things are getting back to normal around here after 3 wonderful days.

We thoroughly enjoyed our precious family time together and now I'm ready to see about ending this year and beginning the new one.

I've played in my Stamping Journal again (a 7x7 Stonehenge Wired watercolor pad).

I recently re-read My Antonia, a novel by one of my favorite authors, Willa Cather. 

This time, this passage stuck with me:

"The pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify – it was like the light of truth itself.  When the smoky clouds hung low in the west and the red sun went down behind them, leaving a pink flush on the snow roofs and the blue drifts, then the wind sprang up afresh, with a kind of bitter song, as if it said: “This is reality, whether you like it or not.  All those frivolities of summer, the light and the shadow, the living mask of green that trembled over everything, they were lies, and this is what was underneath. This is the truth.”  It was as if we were being punished for loving the loveliness of summer. "

I wanted to try to paint a similar winter art journal scene and while I didn't adhere to Cather's vivid description, I feel like I created something that does capture a bit of her winter 'truth'.

Note to file: I would love to someday try to paint some of Cather's many excellent pastoral landscapes as per her descriptions. I bet someone has already done that, so I shall have to research it because I'd love to see them.

I stamped the Northcoast Creations barn with Pinecone VF Clair.

Gave the sky a wash of 2 opaque watercolor blues, let dry.

Added some pink and purple, let dry.

Colored the barn, trees and fencing with the w/c pencils and painted with a water brush, let dry.

Squeezed out a dollup of titanium white acrylic on my palette and with a stencil brush added the white paint to the sky, dabbing and rubbing with a kleenex as I went.

Used the white gel pen and the white acrylic with a liner brush to add the snowy effects to the barn and trees.

I chose these 2 sentiment quotes to stamp, from Artistic Outpost's Midwinter stamp set.

The quote on the left is by the poet Christina Rosetti.

The quote on the right is by the philosopher Albert Camus.

(Good ole Google helped me find them.)

I thought about printing out the Cather book passage that had started all this, but since it's my stamping journal, I used the stamps I have to convey similar thoughts.

Not the same, but close.

Working with what I have and practice painting a winter sky.

I must confess, I did have the urge to stamp a Santa and his sleigh silhouette across the sky and make this a Christmas piece, but there's still a few months of winter left to weather, so I let this one just be winter.

A Big Sky Winter.

I feel for those of you who live in places with "the bleak midwinter" as Rosetti called it.

I'm thankful I see sun most days in winter and only rare-to-infrequent dustings of snow. 

I bet you're glad you don't have hurricanes, so I guess it all evens out.

Thanks for the visit today.

Merry Christmas!!

XOX

CHALLENGE LINK-UPS:

Art Journal Journey, Hosted by Wendy: Above Us Only Sky

Coloring with Pencils December

Dream Factory #123 AG with the Color Blue

We Love 2 Create Mixed Media #11

Creative Artiste Mixed Media December 

Media Used:

Watercolor paper, Stamping ink, Watercolor pencils, Lyra Opaque Watercolors (Gouache), White gel pen, Titanium white acrylic paint

Farm Quest General Store #11

Aud Sentiments #308: Sentiment + Winter

Ellibelle's Crafty Wednesday December

As You Like It: AG and Why You Made It

Explained in above post

Classic Design #12-2023

APTTCOC #12-2023

Lost Coast Designs #180: In the Deep Midwinter

Happy Little Stampers December Watercolor

Double D: Winter / Snow Scene

A Place To Start December w/Opt. NEW

My Lyra Opaque Watercolors (Gouache) are new

Inspiration Station prompt #56

The blues and purples in the photo inspired my sky