Here’s a painting from my trip to the Swiss Alps last summer. We stayed in Gimmelwald in the Bernese Oberland Region. My husband and I joked that every place we stood was a 45 degree angle. This painting became about the sharp angles of the mountains. I tried to balance the negative slope of the foreground grass with the positive slope of the distant mountains. I was also trying to keep each slope a slightly different angle for variety.
This winter of polar vortexes, possibly a result of climate change, did lend itself to a couple outdoor snow studies. I started this particular one while my husband, nieces, and nephews went sled riding down the hill on the right. I was drawn to the crispness of light and how the reduction of hues in winter brings out the beauty and subtlety of the greys.
Another plein air painting on a hillside near my studio that my husband and I always joke is our own hobbit hill…
