Early Spring, Cloudland Road

Winter wants to hold on to the cold but the sun is getting stronger day by day and the snow is diminishing.
I've been working on a watercolor painting of a huge tree on Cloudland Road in Pomfret.  The painting came together in stages which I photographed along the way.

In the first stage I am beginning by painting the lightest colors and then check to see how dark I need to go with the tree.

As I build in the darker shades of the tree trunk and branches, these begin to set off the snow on the branches and ground.

"Early Spring, Cloudland Road"

watercolor - 10" x 12"

The finished painting includes the shadows on the snow and the brush along the horizon.  The foreground snow is not pristine but we've gotten used to this leftover mixture of snow and dirt by the sides of our roads and driveways.  Mud season is here!