It snowed over the weekend for the first time this season. This always leads to me taking a lot of photos of our natural Ozark beauty, most of them not shared because they’re just too repetitive. But I can’t help but take them, because I see so many beautiful sights. It’s not a habit limited to winter scenes. I do this every season, haha.

Ozark Beauty in Winter

Now that I’ve discovered painting, I am saving my favorite photos from these opportunistic days. Here are two that will one day become paintings. I haven’t yet figured out how to do snow, though, so that may take a bit of practice. I believe it’s more of leaving out the paint, rather than adding it in – at least in watercolors. It’s the white of the paper that gives the impression of white clouds and snow. So the trick will be to paint everything EXCEPT the snow and white clouds. I think I’ll have to use a rubbery stuff that you brush on the paper in the places you want to block the paint. After the painting is done, the rubber comes off and leaves the white behind. After that I’ll add the accents or shadows to the white spaces to finish the look. We will see.

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I’ve painted the old shed before, a while back. I’ve learned more about how to paint and so now I’m looking forward to trying it again. This time with a new look. I have so many photos of that shed, I may do a lot more paintings of it in the years to come. We’re going to have to move the shed, which means it won’t ever look the same again because it’s most likely going to need to be disassembled to move it. So I’m glad I took too many pics. I may need them one day to finish my series of old shed paintings.

First, though, another cow to paint

But first, I have a couple of other paintings on the list to do. The first is another cow, an Ozark beauty of a different sort. I’m painting this one is so I can make a print of it to hang on one of the grand-daughter’s walls. It’s her favorite cow, named Whisper.

An an orchid to paint, too – a different Ozark beauty

And some time before March, I have an article or two to write and the featured image to paint. The topic is on orchids of eastern north America and the painting will be of a showy orchid I found last year when it bloomed. The trick to that one is going to be getting my earthy pigments to look close to realistic for this plant. If it won’t work with my watercolors from the Ozark pigments, I’ll use the Prismacolor pencils to add the right shades. Maybe I’ll use a combination of both. I’m not sure yet how I’ll produce the end result, but it’s on the list of things to do.

The publication is the newsletter for the North American Native Plant Society. I’ve written and illustrated for them before, but this will be the first since using local pigments. Writing for them and creating illustrations is a great opportunity to showcase the Ozark beauty in our plant life, and now maybe of our pigments, too.

Rob has been getting organized and ready to start working on the solar array that will power his woodworking shop. It’ll also power the house, so I’m pretty excited about that. I’m starting him a blog for recording his progress and process, but I don’t know how often it’ll get updated. Once he starts building the solar array, I’ll try to document and post about that. And when he starts his woodworking projects, I’ll do the same for those. His site will be more photo based, though, because unless he writes the posts, I won’t know what to write.