Winter Aspens

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. This is another painting in my series of aspen trees in all four seasons. Winter is a beautiful time for artists in the Rockies and I especially like painting all the subtle colors that appear in the snow. Starting with the background I laid down a warm wash of yellow ochre and cobalt violet for the sky and while that was still wet I added a little burnt sienna to the mixture for the distant trees. At the bottom of this I added cerulean blue to the mixture and left a hard edge where the trees came against the snow. When all this was dry I added a few thin strokes of burnt sienna mixed with French ultramarine blue for distant trees. This whole area was about timing with wet paint where I wanted soft edges and a hard edge where the trees came down to the snow.

Moving forward I painted the bigger aspens in the middle ground. I was careful to leave unpainted white paper on the left side of the trees to represent snow and added light washes of cerulean blue here and there for thickness. The trees are a mixture of two different grays; cerulean blue with brilliant orange and burnt sienna with French ultramarine blue. The stream was next and it allowed me to be more creative with color. You can see cobalt violet, mineral violet, alizarin crimson, burnt sienna, cerulean blue and French ultramarine blue. I allowed these colors to flow together and mix on the paper.

The bright blue at the bottom is French Ultramarine blue because I wanted a rich warm blue in that area. It was important to have an interesting combination of hard and soft edges where the snow melted along the bank of the stream. The darkest areas where the bank and rocks meet the water is a mixture of perylene green, burnt sienna and French ultramarine blue. Finally I painted light washes of cerulean blue and cobalt violet for the shadows in the snow. These washes were smaller in the background and got larger as they came forward and served two purposes. First they showed the piles of drifting snow and second the cast shadows from the trees. You can see how the snow colors separated on the paper leaving an interesting texture. Happy Holidays Everyone. Happy Painting! Dennis Pendleton