Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas 2012

There aren't any recent works of mine Christmasy enough for this post, so I dug deep into the past and pulled out a couple wintry scenes done in colored pencil from when I lived in Pennsylvania. My style is completely different now, but I thought it would be fun to share these with you.

 
Early one winter morning I was up to see the twilight. Looking out I saw the deep blue of sky and snow becoming split by warmer tones near the horizon. Also there was the waning crescent moon anticipating the coming sunrise. I made a sketch and later took photos of the scene. From those I made the drawing above.


On a winter's walk in woods just outside of town I saw the trees in the scene above. Struck by the intricate lacework of the spreading branches and twigs, I got out a sketchbook and recorded my impression of the scene. Although whitetail deer frequent the area, they weren't there when I was. Someone I knew had a few captive whitetails in a fenced area, so I went to visit him. There I sketched the deer and took photos. Later I also studied photo references in library books. From those sketches and photos came the drawing shown above.

 I found the initial tree sketch the finished work is based on:

 

These days I prefer painting plein air, and portraits drawn from life, but would like one day to do some more studio works from references.

Merry Christmas!

2 comments:

Wendy said...

I really love the first one with the buildings blanketed in snow and the crisp winter sky.

James Gunter said...

Thank you Wendy! Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for visiting my blog!