Onaping Falls Art show...another award!

I was so very pleased that my pastel painting "Meeting at Sugarbush" has received The People's Choice Award at the 2009 Cavalcade of Colors/Onaping Falls Art Show in Dowling last weekend.

More snow and a bit of moss

After a while, I felt this painting needed some "lift-me-up" color since there's so much rust, orange and brown. The blue/greys of the collecting buckets and the light snow still did not seem to do it so I decided to add a bit of greenery to the painting in the form of moss on the rotting stump. Subsequently, I found that all that green was too much in one place and so I added a bit of moss to the large maple tree trunk in the foreground to balance the color elements better.

In this step I also decided to lighten the stump as the dark contrast of the shadows was pulling they eye towards it to strongly. Then I added a small clump of melting snow near the base of the stump, again to better balance the major elements of the scene and make it more visually pleasing. At least, that is what I am attempting to achieve...