Winter days

I can think of nowhere better to live than where I am in the Texas Hill country, and I can think of no better place to spend a winter either. While the Springtime yields the bursts of colors from the many wildflowers, and summer gives us the cobalt blue skies...and Autumn brings forth the reds, yellows, and purples of the many trees, Winter is truly filled with something new each day.
A typical winter week in Texas can have below-freezing weather on Monday with gray overcast skies, and by Wednesday it can be sunny and 70 degrees. And with each day, colors change, moods shift, and the sky is always a different canvas. As an artist who paints, I always have new opportunities, even with the same scene, on different days. I tried to capture a cold, overcast day in this painting. The field full of winter grass was contrasted by the always-green live oaks and the backdrop of the naked cypress trees along the Cibolo creek that runs along the bluffs of the hills in the background.
I waited for some cloudy days to compose this work. a couple of drawings, followed by a watercolor sketch, helped me capture the cool grass being blown by a north wind, and the winter treeline along the creek. The day I was doing the watercolor, I saw a herd of whitetail deer moving along the trees, including a very nice 10-point buck. I was maybe 225-250 yards from the treeline, and the wind would have been blowing my smell away from them. They never acted like I was even there.
So, I will post the watercolor and the completed painting  - well, I think it's complete, although I haven't signed it yet. Since I have today off, I might make some more tweaks to it - or maybe not. Nevertheless, today's a good day to start a new painting, so I'll go exploring to see what kind of trouble I can get into.

Study for "Winter Field along the Cibolo" watercolor on paper, 9" x 12"

"Winter Field along the Cibolo" oil on panel, 18" x 24" $860, unframed