a number of years ago i researched snow squalls looking for more precise details that i could match up with full moons, as i have found among the many effects of the pull of the full moon on the earth is a high pressure zone, deep sub zero temps and blue skies, all of which make for the visual winter magic i look forward to losing myself in while snowshoeing thru.

i found and worked several each winter; walked miles thru snow squall strips that crossed 12 mile bay road area while snowing its way over to southwood rd area and i next picked it up down thru the kawarthas around sampson lake rd area. the impossibility of parking along southwood rd for any length of time before one or another snowplows would blast their horns to get me to come back n let them pass, led me to hardy lake which gave me a place to park the truck and wander away from any worries of causing mayhem on the roads. there is a pond on the opposite side of hardy lake that i have yet to visually make my own and given the melting going on it may have to wait for the other seasons to pass on their visual delights before the countryside turns white again. 

growing familiarity with hardy lake has freed me to wander off breaking my own trails thru n into moving sunlight casting ever lengthening blue shadows of everything it lights up as it travels across the day and i find magic in the hilly snowcovered groundsheet or ought i say ‘backgroundsheet’ for the interplay of sunlight thruout daylight / snowshoeing around the several small ponds within the park including the one leaking its way down to the lake itself i lose myself,  lose my edges as it were, feeling, corny i know, one with in the sense of immersed in a living forest revealing itself to me i abstract out natural designs everywhere i stand and look, ok not everywhere, but the work below is my 3rd study from hardy lake this year, and i have enough ideas to allow me to continue to work it till next november’s snowfalls.

late day shadows stretching across the pond  15.5″ x 24″  watercolour / acrylic painted directly on gessoed panel / also posted with others in my small winters  page