Guest Room on a Snow Day

Guest Room on a Snowy Day, 8 x 10",  Oil on Canvas, by Tracy Feldman

Watercolor sketch for this oil painting.

Here is the oil painting I said that I'd create the earlier watercolor sketch I did of my guest room. 

I like both, but I prefer the texture and value range I was able to capture using oils. I also love the way the snowy day view outside the window came. Notice that I added some of the brick colors in the bedspread. Doing that helped visually tie the piece together and using a warmer hue in the foreground also helped draw the side of the bed closer to you. It was that image that initially captured me and inspired me to create a painting. 

I wanted to paint this piece because of how that beautiful snowy view contrasted against the still, formality of the bedroom.  The composition brought to mind Van Gogh's "Bedroom in Arles", and I thought it would be fun to capture the feel of that piece. He used oils, so maybe that is another reason I prefer my oil of the same scene.

What is funny to me is when I went on-line to see Van Gough's work, I realized that while both have a bed, paintings, and a window, they are very different.  But, even so, they still give me a similar feeling. 

Today I am posting this little oil on auction in my daiypaintworks.com gallery.  So, if it appeals to you, check it out.  For the first three weeks, it will be listed on auction -- starting at $25.  After that, I'll list it for sale at its normal, higher, on-going price. 

Fine Day Out in Lancaster County

We have been having January thaw weather -- blue sky & clouds and temperatures topping out in the high 40's (about 8 or 9 C). We finally decided to take advantage of it, so yesterday we attended a winter birding program at Lancaster County Central Park. 

It was great and we were so charmed by seeing things like snow drops (that shouldn't be out for about a month at least) that we decided to continue the fun by taking a ride.




Arny asked where I wanted to go. At first, I said north, and then I looked at the clouds moving in and said, let's just follow the sun. He thought it was a great idea, and we had a wonderful couple of hours drifting through the county, choosing each new turn after consulting the sky. If our direction of travel started to move us into clouds, we turned towards the most sunny place. 




What we saw on our ride reminded us of how beautiful our county is even in the more-subtly-hued times of winter. By the end of the trip, we were pleased and surprised to find that our drift had led to one of our favorite natural places, Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area, and that it already had a large population of swans and geese.


 Check out a selection of the photos we took below and 
tell me which ones you think I should use as subjects for my "painting a day" project.

Fox Sparrow on Christmas Tree

Sparrow on Feeder

Nuthatch on Pine

Chickadee Hanging From Feeder

Winterberries

January Snow Drops

Seed Pods in the Sun

See 

Dried Grasses Glowing in the Sun

Winter "flowers"

Sycamore Against a Winter Sky

A Spiral of Swans, Middle Creek WLMA

Middle Creek Swans & Geese in Late Day Sun

Swans Trough Late Day Trees