Winter in Cealanda

 

For the last 30 some years I've traveled the highways and byways of the imaginary land of Cealanda, stopping where I will to paint scenes that I found interesting. It seems that I like to travel just as long as long as I can do it in my imagination and not actually have to go anywhere. While I have done a bit of traveling in my life, including a "Grand Tour" after college; 2 1/2 months traveling around Britain via British Rail on my own, I don't travel anymore, except form my virtual rides on trains and busses via YouTube and in my imagination. Plus, I do a lot imaginary traveling these days for my stories, just as I did it for my paintings. 

Seeing that today we're at or near the winter solstice, the most "wintery" time of year, even though we have like 4 months of winter following the solstice around these parts, I figured I'd post a few of my paintings of winter in Cealanda. They can also serve as my Christmas cards to you, dear readers.

The watercolor painting above is of an alley in Pangone, an district of Willowsea a city, which I frequently. The stables have mostly been converted to dwellings and workshops. Below is a view of an enclosed court in Willowsea.

Watercolor winter scenes worked for me because the white of the snow separates colors so that they don't bleed together. It keeps the paintings crisp as you can see in the painting below. If all the snow was grass, things would tend to bleed together, at least for me.

Above are two rural scenes, the lower one I know to be painted with acrylic paint on watercolor canvas. The upper one maybe. Otherwise it is watercolor on paper.

A bit of background. At the age of 53 I quite my day job to be come a full time starving artist. I was quite successful at the starving part. One thing I quickly learned was that oil paintings commanded a whole lot more money than watercolors. So if I was not to starve, I needed to teach myself how to paint in oils. Given time constrains - I didn't have 20 years to learn how to paint in oil - as well as personal preference, I adopted the impressionist style of painting and made it my own. After a year or two, I switched to painting with acrylics on hardboard because oils took so long to dry, painting them on stretched canvas made shipping them to customers somewhat iffy, moreover, I found that I could do almost every thing that I wanted in acrylic paints and do it easier than in oils. Below are several samples of my paintings (thick) acrylic impressionist paintings.

I could go on and on, as I have painted probably 2000 paintings. I have a link to my on line galleries on the right, if you care to see more of my work in paint. My wife likes my watercolor style paintings, though the later ones in that style were actually painted using acrylic paint on watercolor canvas, but I like my thicker, impressionist style paintings better. And I know best.

In any and all events, Happy Holiday season whatever holiday you celebrate, or just survive, like me. 

Above an oil painting, on stretched canvas below a watercolor on paper