Winter Journey

It is ten years since the untimely death of W. G. Sebald and earlier this month there was a special event to celebrate his work and launch Across the Land and the Water: Selected Poems, 1964-2001. There were contributions from Iain Sinclair, A. S. Byatt, Andrew Motion and others who knew him (like poet Will Stone, whose recollections of studying with Sebald were particularly poignant).  It was sad to reflect that the last time I had seen translator Anthea Bell on stage it was next to Sebald himself, reading from the recently-published Austerlitz.  The crumbling Victorian Wilton's Music Hall was a particularly resonant setting for the readings, and for the performance of songs from Schubert's Winterreise by Ian Bostridge.  Hearing the Winterreise in this context prompted thoughts of all the journeys and sadness in Sebald's writings.  

There are many clips online of Ian Bostridge performing the Winterreise - the one I've included above is the opening song in the sequence.  I thought it would be interesting to provide here short summaries of the cycle's twenty-four songs, to show how many of them start with some aspect of the winter landscape - the rustling sound of linden trees, ice on a frozen river, a tree's last few leaves trembling in the wind.  Many of these natural elements are evoked in Schubert's piano score (for example, in 'Der Lindenbaum', 'the piano’s fluttering triplet figuration in E major which opens the song evokes the gentle breezes and whispering leaves of summer: the figure returns later, altered with chromatic harmonies, to depict the cold wind and eerie rustling of the tree in winter, and the young man’s growing sense of delusion'.)  Rather than do a plain synopsis I've turned the Winterreise below into a set of tanka-style verses - I know this is a complete travesty (as Mrs Plinius was quick to point out when she saw what I was doing) but I just found it more fun than writing a set of bullet points... I've based this on the English translation at the Lied, Art Song and Choral Text Archive, using Arthur Rishi's titles; you can follow the link to read proper translations, or the original German poems by Wilhelm Müller. 

Good Night

I leave, a stranger -

Remembering the flowers

And the talk of love

As I walk this path in snow

And write “Good Night” on thegate.

The Weathervane

The weathervane blows

Whistling at this fugitive.

In that house, the wind

Plays quietly withpeople’s hearts.

What is my suffering tothem?

Frozen tears

Frozen teardrops fall

Like morning dew turned toice

But spring from a heart

That’s burning hot enoughto

Melt all the ice of winter.

Numbness

No trace of her now

Walking on this once greenfield.

Pale turf, dead flowers.

And if my dead heartshould thaw,

Her image would melt away.

The linden tree

By a fountain, near the gate:

A linden tree. Though it’s dark

I try not to see

The words of love we carvedthere.

Still, I hear the tree rustling.

Torrent

The snow drinks my tears,

But when the grass starts to grow

And the ice breaks up

A brook will carry them through

The town’s streets and past herhouse.

On the stream

Wild stream, with a hard

Solid crust of ice onwhich

I carve her name, and

A broken ring.  Underneath

There is a surgingtorrent.

Backward Glance

I’ll not pause until

The town is out of sightwhere

Once the windows shone,

The linden trees wereblooming

And a girl’s eyes wereglowing.

Will-o'-the-wisp

A will-o'-the-wisp

Led me astray. Now I walk

Down a stream’s drycourse.

Every stream will find the sea,

Every sorrow finds its grave.

Rest

Too cold to stand still

I’ve walked this desolateroad.

Sheltering now in

A coal burner’s narrow hut

I cannot rest, my woundsstill burn.

A Dream of Springtime

Dreaming of flowers

And the song of birds inMay,

I wake in the dark

With ravens shriekingabove.

When will all these leavesturn green?

Loneliness

A dark cloud passing

Through clear skies, I make myway

Through bright, joyful life.

When the tempests were raging

I was not so miserable.

The post

What makes my heart leap

At the sound of a posthorn

Coming from the street?

Why would I want to look there?

There is no letter for me.

The grey head

My frost coated hair

Soon thaws and leaves megrieving,

Sad to think that death

Is still far off.  This journey

Has still not turned my hair togrey.

The crow

A crow is circling.

It’s been with me since the town

And won’t leave until

The end.  Not much further now.

Fidelity to the grave.

Last hope

A few coloured leaves

Are visible on the trees.

If that one I choose

Is caught and blown to the ground

I too will sink down and weep.

In the village

The hounds are barking

Whilst men sleep and dream ofthings

They do not have. Bark

Me away, you waking dogs.

I am finished with all dreams.

The stormy morning

Weary shreds of cloud

Flit across a storm-torn sky,

Red flames among them.

This morning is to my taste -

It is nothing but winter.

Deception

Before me a light…

I follow it eagerly

Through the ice and night

Imagining a warm house…

But it is all delusion.

The signpost

I search hidden paths

Over cliff tops and wastelands -

One sign before me,

My eyes fixed upon the road

From which no one returns

The inn

I reach a graveyard,

Its death wreaths tempting to

The weary traveller.

But all the rooms are taken

And I must go further on.

Courage

Snow flies in my face.

I shake it off.  My heart cries,

But I sing brightly.

I have no ears for laments

And stride on against thewind.

The phantom suns

Three suns in the sky –

They seem to stare down atme.

Gone, the best two suns,

And I do not need thethird:

I’m better left indarkness.

The hurdy-gurdy man

Barefoot on the ice,

An old hurdy-gurdy man.

Nobody listens.

Shall I go with him and let

Him play along to my songs?

To go out and walk far in the forest

Badelunda, Sweden

Source: Wikimedia Commons

I was glad to hear that Tomas Tranströmer has won the Nobel Prize and have been looking today through my copy of his New Collected Poems, translated by Robin Fulton.  Here is my guide to some of the imagery you'll find in his poetry.

1. Snow.   In an earlier post I talked about a poem, 'From March 1979', in which Tranströmer goes to a snow-covered island and sees in the tracks of the deer 'language but no words.'  Language itself suffers in the still, cold February of another poem, 'Face to Face', where there is deep snow and 'footprints grew old out on the crust. / Under a tarpaulin language pined.'  But the onset of a snowfall can seem as joyful as music ('C Major') and when winter ends eventually, as in the poem 'Noon Thaw', the world has a new language: 'the vowels were blue sky and the consonants were black twigs and the speech was soft over the snow.'
2. Stillness.   In that dead winter of 'Face to Face', 'living stood still' and 'the soul / chafed against the landscape.'  But eventually, one day, colours flared and 'everything turned around. / The earth and I sprang towards each other'. Elsewhere in Tranströmer there are moments of quiet contemplation, 'Weather Picture' for instance, where the October sea glistens coldly and all sounds are 'in slow flight'.  'Breathing Space July' contains three moments of stillness, lying under a tree, looking into the water, and sleeping.  And in 'Slow Music' he writes of a day down by the water, 'among large stones with peaceful backs', where 'you can stand in the sun with your eyes shut / and feel yourself being slowly blown forward.'
3. Summer.   In a prose poem, 'The Blue House', Tranströmer stands ina dense forest under 'a night of radiant sun.'  'A ship's engine far away on the water expands the summer-night horizon.  Both joy and sorrow swell in the dew's magnifying glass.'  But those sunlit Swedish summers will eventually fade until the sounds of the forest flow 'into a single melancholy murmer' ('The Cuckoo'). In 'Lament' the writer notices the slow coming of night. 'The moths settle on the window pane: / small pale telegrams from the world.'
4. Song.   In 'Song' Tranströmer recalls the legend of Väinämöinen, the eternal bard of the Kalevala, riding over the sea.  He also listens at nightfall to the abortive music of gulls on a dark skerry.  You can hear birdsong in many of his poems - 'Ringing', 'Morning Birds', 'Memories Look at Me', 'Early May Stanzas', 'The Nightingale in Badelunda'. The last of these describes a moment when time stopped as he listened to 'the raw resonant notes that whet the night sky's gleaming scythe.' 
5. Stars.  'Orion hangs above the ground-frost...'; 'Silent constellations.  And the cold ocean.' Tranströmer poems often take place at night, although the stars may merely be glimpsed, up through the grating of winter.  In an early poem, 'Epilogue', he describes the evening star like an X-ray, developing a hidden landscape of houses, trees and fences.  And then a storm comes in and the stars seem to signal for help, 'lit and quenched by headlong clouds / that only when they shade the light betray / their presence.'
6. Sleep.   In 'Tracks' a train stops in the middle of a plain - 'bright moonlight, few stars' - and far away there are the lights of a town.  It is like a dream that the sleeper will not remember. Sleep and dreams recur throughout Tranströmer's poetry and indeed the opening lines of the first poem in his first collection describe that moment of awakening when 'consciousness can grasp the world / as the hand grips a sun-warmed stone.'  'The Man who Awoke with Singing over the Roofs' evokes that same feeling, when the sleeper 'begins / groping for attention's instruments'. 
7. Storms.  Sometimes the poet is woken by a storm.  In 'Autumnal Archipelago' he listens in the darkness to 'constellations stamping inside their stalls, high over the tree-tops'.  Similarly, 'A Winter Night' begins with this memorable image: 'the storm put its mouth to the house / and blows to produce a note.'  These experiences suggest a simile in 'Agitated Meditation': 'a storm drives the mill sails wildly round / in the night's darkness, grinding nothing. - You / are kept awake by the same laws...'
8. Silence.   Other times the nights are quiet: in 'Nocturne', the trees keep 'silence in concord with each other.'  In 'Five Stanzas to Thoreau', Tranströmer talks of silence slowly spiralling from the earth to grow 'with its burgeoning crown to shade his sun-heated doorstep.'  Thus silence seems sought after at times - in 'Along the Radius' he sits by an ice-bound river on an upturned boat 'swallowing the drug of silence'.  But in 'April and Silence' Spring lies desolate and 'the only thing I want to say / glitters out of reach / like the silver / in a pawnbrokers.'
9. Solitude.   In 'Alone', Tranströmer says 'I must be alone / Ten minutes in the morning / and ten minutes in the evening / without a programme.'  Earlier in this poem he is walking on the frozen fields of Östergötland and doesn't see a single person.  Other solitary artists appear in his poems - Thoreau 'disappearing deep in his inner greenness' and Grieg in his work-cottage, 'shut in with silence.'  In 'Solitary Swedish Houses' everything seems to stand alone and summer comes with 'flaxen-haired rain / or one solitary thunder-cloud / above a barking dog.'
10. Sunlight.  Finally, the transformative effect of sunlight is evident in poems like 'Landscape with Suns', where the poet takes the memory of a glowing sun back to 'the half dead grey forest /  where we have to work and live.'  'Further In' describes an evening when he is driving through thick traffic.  A low red sun streaming in through his windscreen makes him feel transparent, so that 'writing becomes visible / inside me'.  Right then, he knows he must 'get far away / straight through the city and then / further until it is time to go out / and walk far in the forest.'

The region appeared to be smiling

Robert Walser's novel The Assistant (1908) opens on a spring morning as Joseph Marti knocks on the door of a lakeside villa owned by his new employer, the inventor Carl Tobler, and ends the following winter with his departure, leaving Tobler's family mired in debt and contemplating the inevitable sale of their property. In the afterword to her translation Susan Bernofsky says that the book's last paragraph was trimmed before publication, but that the original ending encapsulates 'the mood of the book's final pages in a poignant vignette in which the landscape that has been granted such powers of expression throughout the novel appears as lost in thought as its observer.'  Joseph looks back at the house one more time, 'silent in wintry isolation ... The landscape appeared to have eyes, and it appeared to be closing them, filled utterly with peace, in order to reflect.  Yes, everything appeared a bit pensive.  All the surrounding colors appeared to be gently and sweetly dreaming.'

Image from A Journey Round My Skull

The landscape's 'powers of expression' are evident almost every time Joseph leaves the workshop and experiences the natural beauty around him.  These exaggerated examples of the pathetic fallacy read as the imaginative projections of a lonely young man, unsure of his place in this world and witnessing the hopes of his employer sinking into inevitable failure. 'Yes, you tell yourself, colors like this produce warmth!  The region appeared to be smiling, the sky seemed to have been made happy by its own appearance, it appeared to be the scent and substance and the dear meaning of this smiling of land and lake.  How all these things could just lie there, radiant and still.  If you gazed out over the surface of the lake, you felt - and you didn't even have to be an assistant for this - as if you were being addressed with friendly, agreeable words.'

Joseph stays on at the villa despite not receiving his salary, unable to bring himself to leave.  But, he reflects, nature itself never really changes - lakes do not suddenly transform themselves into clouds.  'A wintry image could superimpose itself upon the world of summer; winter could give way to spring, but the face of the earth remained the same.  It put on masks and took them off again, it wrinkled and cleared its huge beautiful brow, it smiled or looked angry, but remained always the same.  It was a great lover of make-up, it painted its face now more brightly, now in paler hues, now it was glowing, now pallid, never quite what it had been before, constantly it was changing a little, and yet remained always vividly and restlessly the same.  It sent lightning bolts flashing from its eyes and rumbled the thunder with its powerful lungs, it wept the rain down in streams and let the clean, glittering snow come smiling from its lips, but in the features and lineaments of its face, little change could be discerned.'

As time passes and autumn turns to winter Joseph still sees nature in benevolent terms, as the countryside 'peacefully and languorously allowed itself to be covered with thickly falling snow, calmly holding out, as it were, its large, broad, old and wide hand to catch everything.'  The last day of the year is unseasonably sunny, reminding him of the time in May when he first arrived at the villa.  The weather 'simultaneously calmed and agitated him', but as evening comes - the last evening he will spend there with the Toblers - Joseph, in 'an almost holy mood' goes for a walk. 'The entire landscape appeared to him to be praying, so invitingly, with all its faint, muted earthen hues.  The green of the meadows was smiling out from beneath the snow, which the sun had broken into white islands and patches'.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO -- WHITE DONE RIGHT

Frosty Glow, 9" x 12" 

(With thanks to The Pastel Journal where this was originally published, with additional material included here.)

The painting looks washed out, as though someone poured bleach over it and left it in the sun too long. All the colors appear faded, like jeans after years of wear or an old flag left to disintegrate, a vague suggestion of once-bright colors. The overall effect is dull and flat. Chalkiness is a problem that can crop up in any medium, but is often found in pastel paintings, partly because of the abundance of pale colors that are available. The whitish, wishy-washy colors of a chalky painting suggest a lack of control over value, contrast and color.

A high-key painting need not be bland and characterless. Instead it can celebrate the light by maintaining control of tones, using a range of values and the right contrasts for the subject. Although the darkest dark may only be a medium value in the final painting it must nevertheless present a selection of values leading to the lightest light.

One way to defeat chalky color syndrome is to try two different challenges: First, paint an all-white subject using no actual white pastel. Second, paint a very high-key subject in which a medium value functions as the darkest dark. Each of these exercises will strengthen your understanding of how to control values while using colors. Value is the element that describes the shapes of objects and is the underlying abstraction of all painting, so increased awareness of value improves composition as well as color.

WHITE WITHOUT WHITE

Begin with an all-white subject, which may reside inside the composition, such as a white cloud or whitewater rapids, and work to create interesting colors hung on a sound tonal structure while maintaining a sense of whiteness. Because of the temptation to pick up pure, bright white, remove it from your palette and put it where you cannot see it. Good planning must lie behind your painting, in which you first create an arrangement of interesting values and shapes. In this challenge you need not limit the values. In fact, it’s best to design a strong tonal contrast of dark darks and an excellent range of middle values to use against the light colors to achieve the impression of whiteness. Don’t use bright white paper, which will simply allow you to replace the missing white with the color of the ground. Instead, choose a light value tone in a pleasing color to set the mood of the painting and establish its overall paleness. Do not allow the white subject to become simply black and white. Utilize colors to arrive at the proper tones. Many times an over-reliance on high contrast alone results in a chalky painting. Instead, a range of strong middle values accomplished via color will make an interesting all-white subject.

Cold River Runoff, 9" x 17"

How much color can you put into white? One of the most interesting aspects of white is that it’s made up of all colors in the light spectrum. Overlapping red, blue and green spotlights can make white light on a stage, as long as the colors are equally balanced. For the artist, this means white may be flavored with any color found in nature. Consider the color cast that varying light sources give to objects. Our sun is a yellow star and gives warmth to all colors seen in daylight. In shade, the blue of the sky influences all colors, so whites seen in daylight can generally be thought of as warm yellow in the sun and cool blue in shade. However, there are varying kinds of daylight. On an overcast day the light is often cool in color, having been filtered through clouds, while at sunrise or sunset the light is strikingly warm in color. Whites seen under these conditions can be darker shades of blue and green or warm, bright tones of red and orange. Moonlight, because it is so pale, bleeds all color from a scene, leaving ghostly grays in place of whites. Firelight and candlelight make white into hot red and orange. You’re free to select from an endless array of light colors because of the fact that white contains all colors.

One particularly important tool to have on hand is a value finder. While there are many varieties, essentially this is a card printed with a scale of grays from black to white, each of which is pierced with an opening. This allows you to hold the card above a color, squint until your eye is almost closed and see where that particular color blends into its value of gray. For instance, you can hold the card above a photograph of clouds and perceive the lightest lights in the white of the billows, as well as the paler grays of the blue of the sky. There is no standard number assigned to values on the value finder. The number 10 does not always represent white. In fact, 10 might easily be called black, so disregard the actual number but understand that there is a scale of dark to light.

White is by definition the lightest value in the palette. To paint white subject matter you must first realize that no other color can possibly approach white in lightness. Therefore the challenge is to build near-whites into the painting, using far more colors in the light range of your palette. Hold the value finder above the lightest values in your photograph or painting, noting that only white registers as the lightest light. Now find colors that are slightly -- very slightly -- darker than white. This may be only a pale pearl gray value. If your palette of colors is not strong in this light range, consider purchasing very pale blues, greens, yellows, peaches, pinks, lavenders and grays that you can use when very light values are needed. However, do not rely on light colors alone to make an effective painting of a white subject. You must structure a strong range of all values into the painting, and these too must be made using colors. Particularly important to the success of the white subject is the use of interesting middle tones, where the strongest color often resides. The strongest darks will also benefit from the use of colors.

To check the values of your colors change a photograph to grayscale on your computer. This will allow you to clearly see how the colors translate into values. Check to make sure that your subject appears to be white in the grayscale version and that you have the proper array of values.

MIDDLE VALUE AS DARK

For another challenge, paint a subject that’s structured using mostly lighter values, such as a very sunny landscape. This is commonly referred to as a high-key painting. Use your value finder to establish the darkest dark in your painting as a medium or medium-dark value. High-key compositions must have an interesting variety of values between the lightest light and the darkest dark to avoid overly pale chalkiness, even if the darkest color is medium in value. Rather than relying on high contrasts of light and dark, look instead to color relationships. This will necessitate concentrated contrasts in color rather than a reliance on value alone. However, no painting can possibly divorce itself entirely from the issue of value, which is a basic property of color.

Fog, 12" x 9"

You’ll need to select a value for your ground. Beginning with a middle value establishes the darkest tone for the entire painting. The test is to rely on medium values as the darkest darks in a painting of a light subject. It helps to create a careful study or underdrawing to establish a range of values from medium to light. In this painting you are allowed to use white for the palest value, however, after your experiments painting all-white-with-no-white you most likely will find that white seems somewhat dead, giving a ghostly chalkiness to the piece. The idea here is to use vibrant colors that bounce and play together, achieving an overall high-key value structure that’s nonetheless colorful. The effect may be one of intense heat, giving the impression of a hot summer day or powerful sunlight warming everything in the scene, even when predominantly cool colors are used, or may result in the cool, pale effect of fog or early morning light. Confirm your limited value range by laying your value finder down alongside the painting, or put a strong dark line next to the image against which you can check your colors so that you can more easily identify darks that are becoming too deep for the limited range you’ve established. Step back frequently to see that the intensity of colors you’re using approximates the light on the subject.

CONTROL

As you conduct each of these exercises your control over value will increase, as will your understanding of how to use colorful lights. You will begin to see the color of light in all its many hues, and realize that pale color does not mean lack of color. Chalky paintings with an insipid, dull look will soon give way to lyrical colors in pale values that vibrate together in a well-planned structure of values.

Sanctuary, 12" x 9"

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO -- WHITE DONE RIGHT

Frosty Glow, 9" x 12" 

(With thanks to The Pastel Journal where this was originally published, with additional material included here.)

The painting looks washed out, as though someone poured bleach over it and left it in the sun too long. All the colors appear faded, like jeans after years of wear or an old flag left to disintegrate, a vague suggestion of once-bright colors. The overall effect is dull and flat. Chalkiness is a problem that can crop up in any medium, but is often found in pastel paintings, partly because of the abundance of pale colors that are available. The whitish, wishy-washy colors of a chalky painting suggest a lack of control over value, contrast and color.

A high-key painting need not be bland and characterless. Instead it can celebrate the light by maintaining control of tones, using a range of values and the right contrasts for the subject. Although the darkest dark may only be a medium value in the final painting it must nevertheless present a selection of values leading to the lightest light.

One way to defeat chalky color syndrome is to try two different challenges: First, paint an all-white subject using no actual white pastel. Second, paint a very high-key subject in which a medium value functions as the darkest dark. Each of these exercises will strengthen your understanding of how to control values while using colors. Value is the element that describes the shapes of objects and is the underlying abstraction of all painting, so increased awareness of value improves composition as well as color.

WHITE WITHOUT WHITE

Begin with an all-white subject, which may reside inside the composition, such as a white cloud or whitewater rapids, and work to create interesting colors hung on a sound tonal structure while maintaining a sense of whiteness. Because of the temptation to pick up pure, bright white, remove it from your palette and put it where you cannot see it. Good planning must lie behind your painting, in which you first create an arrangement of interesting values and shapes. In this challenge you need not limit the values. In fact, it’s best to design a strong tonal contrast of dark darks and an excellent range of middle values to use against the light colors to achieve the impression of whiteness. Don’t use bright white paper, which will simply allow you to replace the missing white with the color of the ground. Instead, choose a light value tone in a pleasing color to set the mood of the painting and establish its overall paleness. Do not allow the white subject to become simply black and white. Utilize colors to arrive at the proper tones. Many times an over-reliance on high contrast alone results in a chalky painting. Instead, a range of strong middle values accomplished via color will make an interesting all-white subject.

Cold River Runoff, 9" x 17"

How much color can you put into white? One of the most interesting aspects of white is that it’s made up of all colors in the light spectrum. Overlapping red, blue and green spotlights can make white light on a stage, as long as the colors are equally balanced. For the artist, this means white may be flavored with any color found in nature. Consider the color cast that varying light sources give to objects. Our sun is a yellow star and gives warmth to all colors seen in daylight. In shade, the blue of the sky influences all colors, so whites seen in daylight can generally be thought of as warm yellow in the sun and cool blue in shade. However, there are varying kinds of daylight. On an overcast day the light is often cool in color, having been filtered through clouds, while at sunrise or sunset the light is strikingly warm in color. Whites seen under these conditions can be darker shades of blue and green or warm, bright tones of red and orange. Moonlight, because it is so pale, bleeds all color from a scene, leaving ghostly grays in place of whites. Firelight and candlelight make white into hot red and orange. You’re free to select from an endless array of light colors because of the fact that white contains all colors.

One particularly important tool to have on hand is a value finder. While there are many varieties, essentially this is a card printed with a scale of grays from black to white, each of which is pierced with an opening. This allows you to hold the card above a color, squint until your eye is almost closed and see where that particular color blends into its value of gray. For instance, you can hold the card above a photograph of clouds and perceive the lightest lights in the white of the billows, as well as the paler grays of the blue of the sky. There is no standard number assigned to values on the value finder. The number 10 does not always represent white. In fact, 10 might easily be called black, so disregard the actual number but understand that there is a scale of dark to light.

White is by definition the lightest value in the palette. To paint white subject matter you must first realize that no other color can possibly approach white in lightness. Therefore the challenge is to build near-whites into the painting, using far more colors in the light range of your palette. Hold the value finder above the lightest values in your photograph or painting, noting that only white registers as the lightest light. Now find colors that are slightly -- very slightly -- darker than white. This may be only a pale pearl gray value. If your palette of colors is not strong in this light range, consider purchasing very pale blues, greens, yellows, peaches, pinks, lavenders and grays that you can use when very light values are needed. However, do not rely on light colors alone to make an effective painting of a white subject. You must structure a strong range of all values into the painting, and these too must be made using colors. Particularly important to the success of the white subject is the use of interesting middle tones, where the strongest color often resides. The strongest darks will also benefit from the use of colors.

To check the values of your colors change a photograph to grayscale on your computer. This will allow you to clearly see how the colors translate into values. Check to make sure that your subject appears to be white in the grayscale version and that you have the proper array of values.

MIDDLE VALUE AS DARK

For another challenge, paint a subject that’s structured using mostly lighter values, such as a very sunny landscape. This is commonly referred to as a high-key painting. Use your value finder to establish the darkest dark in your painting as a medium or medium-dark value. High-key compositions must have an interesting variety of values between the lightest light and the darkest dark to avoid overly pale chalkiness, even if the darkest color is medium in value. Rather than relying on high contrasts of light and dark, look instead to color relationships. This will necessitate concentrated contrasts in color rather than a reliance on value alone. However, no painting can possibly divorce itself entirely from the issue of value, which is a basic property of color.

Fog, 12" x 9"

You’ll need to select a value for your ground. Beginning with a middle value establishes the darkest tone for the entire painting. The test is to rely on medium values as the darkest darks in a painting of a light subject. It helps to create a careful study or underdrawing to establish a range of values from medium to light. In this painting you are allowed to use white for the palest value, however, after your experiments painting all-white-with-no-white you most likely will find that white seems somewhat dead, giving a ghostly chalkiness to the piece. The idea here is to use vibrant colors that bounce and play together, achieving an overall high-key value structure that’s nonetheless colorful. The effect may be one of intense heat, giving the impression of a hot summer day or powerful sunlight warming everything in the scene, even when predominantly cool colors are used, or may result in the cool, pale effect of fog or early morning light. Confirm your limited value range by laying your value finder down alongside the painting, or put a strong dark line next to the image against which you can check your colors so that you can more easily identify darks that are becoming too deep for the limited range you’ve established. Step back frequently to see that the intensity of colors you’re using approximates the light on the subject.

CONTROL

As you conduct each of these exercises your control over value will increase, as will your understanding of how to use colorful lights. You will begin to see the color of light in all its many hues, and realize that pale color does not mean lack of color. Chalky paintings with an insipid, dull look will soon give way to lyrical colors in pale values that vibrate together in a well-planned structure of values.

Sanctuary, 12" x 9"

 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN -- SNOW

Rio Snow, 12" x 9"

Snow settles over the land with a shimmer and weight that blurs and softens the shapes of everything it covers. Its startling whiteness shifts the values of the landscape painting, forcing the artist to paint the ground, rather than the sky, as the lightest plane in the picture, and to structure the painting carefully to achieve a clean, bold whiteness. Although many think snow a simple subject to paint, it presents special challenges to pastelists because of the medium’s inherent tendency to blend on the paper when applied in layers and the fact that colors that are not crisply applied and left untouched can become muddy looking. Avoiding these pitfalls takes forethought and planning, as well as knowledge in handling the medium.

The first hazard the artist encounters in painting snow is that of value shift. It seems simple enough: In a snow painting the land becomes the lightest plane, the sky is medium-light and the trees are dark. But does the fact that the land plane becomes lightest perhaps force the sky to become a medium value? No! The sky is still the same light value it has always been, but the ground is often lighter in value when covered with a fresh blanket of snow. Value relationships are the key. Another casualty of the shift in values is often the colors in the snow. It’s very easy to see the snow scene as overly black and white, neglecting the chance for surprising color, as well as simplifying the value range far too much. This can result in unrealistically strong contrast, which omits medium-dark and medium-light values entirely.

Mountain Snow, 8" x 11"

Photographic prints, especially those taken by amateur photographers, often validate oversimplification and lead the student artist astray. Because cameras average the light coming into the lens, in all but the most expert of hands a print will be overly dark in dark areas or overly light in light areas. All detail and nuance of color is lost in the shadows or washed away by the light. Spend time observing the values and colors of snow without relying on a photograph to portray it for you. As you step outside on a cold, snowy day you might first notice the whiteness of the snow, and then perhaps the color of the sky. Spend time looking for the subtleties of color in the snow. Generally you will see warm colors in the sunlight and cool colors in shadows. When the light is one color the shadows are usually the opposite, but the color depends on many variables. Remember aerial perspective holds true. Distance flavors all colors, strewing the light around the landscape so that colors become lighter in value and cooler in color as they recede from the viewer in all instances -- except that of white. As white recedes it becomes slightly darker and duller. It remains its whitest in the near foreground.

Sunlit Snow, 12" x 12" (underdrawing, charcoal)

Shadows on snow will shift with distance, generally from greenish-blue in the fore to lavender-blue in the middle ground to pure blue in the distance, as the air progressively filters out yellow and red. Shadow colors on snow often depend on the color of the sky. Look for a shadow crossing new-fallen snow. See how the sky color is captured there, dark beneath its source and lightening slightly with distance. Snow is extremely reflective. Because it’s light in color (literally containing all colors in white light), snow reflects a greater percentage of light. Consider a snow-covered hillside that forms a soft bowl at its foot. Depending on which way it faces, the shadowed face may contain subtly different colors because the sky reflected in it will vary slightly. The sky is somewhat darker at the zenith and paler at the horizon, as well as slightly warmer in the quadrant near the sun and cooler away from the sun. This means that the colors in shadows on snow may be some permutation of warm or cool, very pale or somewhat darker, and range in color from blue-green to lavender to pure blue depending on the distance from the viewer. This allows for exciting color possibilities in both sunlight and shadows on snow. Reflections in snow can also be found in more intimate surroundings. Look for the color of a wall or fence reflected against the snow bank beneath it. Bounce colors from nearby objects into the shadows, thereby creating particularly beautiful temperature changes. A reflection can season the color of the shadow nearby, causing another dimension of color in the snow. Layering colors creates subtle variations, particularly in deep shadow areas. Even the darkest shadows in snow are fairly light in value.

After a heavy snowfall, the outlines of objects become muffled and soft, blanketed with a thick, velvety whiteness that blunts hard edges. The barn becomes a giant pillow pointing its corner skyward, the car a marshmallow shape in the hollow of the driveway. Trees become weighed down by the wetness of the snow. Look for the way the branches are pushed down until the snow atop them becomes part of the bank beneath. Don’t miss the heaviness of snow. Also, find places where the rich, dark soil punctuates the snow as it begins to melt, forming deep pools around plants and grasses. Concentrate on these edges, which are crisp where they touch the ground but remain rounded above. Be especially careful in places where dark colors reside in front of light ones, and must therefore be painted dark over light. It’s best not to overwork these spots, which is bound to cause muddy-looking patches. Plan your painting carefully so that you can use one deliberate stroke of color, then stop while it’s fresh.

A snow drift is an exercise in hard and soft, sharp edges and blended slopes. Find the direction of the sun and the defining shadow. Without any shadow, drifts are seen as subtle variations of warm and cool. Look for the crisp line along the top edge and the soft slide of snow, like a mountain in miniature. See how you can define this slope using colors that are layered and softly blended together to create the shadow side, adding a line of light color where the sun blazes. If there is a cornice where the snow has blown over the top and frozen in place or a cast shadow crossing the drift, you have an added chance to define the shape of the drift with color, blending and edges.

Winter Sun and Shadows, 12" x 18"

Although there are generalizations that can assist you in painting snow, hard and fast rules need to be suspended. The reflective brightness of snow changes everything. So be adventurous, try new colors, layers and new techniques. Painting snow with pastels is a very satisfying experience. Snow is light in color and value, the strongest range of colors available in the medium. Pastelists therefore have virtually endless choices of colors to use. Snow’s rounded softness is easily captured by lightly blending colors to show the swish and slide of shadows. The reflective qualities of pastel mimic the sparkle and shine of snow with ease. All in all, pastel is well suited to painting snow.

FALLING SNOW

There are different techniques you can use to paint falling snowflakes, but it’s best to paint the entire image before adding any falling flakes. Choose a subject with muted light since snow falls from clouds that obscure the light. It’s not necessary to have a photograph of snow falling on the scene you’re painting since photos are hard to capture, but study such photos for evidence of how to make snow look realistic.

For instance, there will not be any strong shadows in the photo, nor will there be strong dark and light contrasts. Paint the softly muted colors that come from low ambient light. Use a palette of subdued light to medium-light colors, with an occasional dark to punctuate the painting. Remember that in a high-key painting with low contrast darks become very strong punctuation. Carefully place these darks to draw the eye. Because the light is low, your lightest colors will not be strongly white in color, so reserve the use of white for the end, assuring yourself that you’ll have lights to use if needed. Many paintings of falling snow will have no pure white in them at all. Put your white aside for the majority of the painting.

Notice how falling snow looks in a photograph. There are near and far flakes seen in varying degrees of light colors, the nearer ones bigger and brighter. The pattern of flakes is random and swirling, not evenly spaced like wallpaper. The flakes may look light against darker areas and sometimes darker against the whiter areas -- but not always. At times the light flakes simply disappear against the lightest areas of the painting. You don’t have to show every flake. Less is often more!

To make the final falling flakes choose several colors in various light and medium-light shades. Begin by dotting in a few key spots to draw the eye, adding colors judiciously. Notice the angle at which the flakes are falling. Sometimes the wind whips them into swirls, although there’s usually a prevailing direction. Stop after each layer of dots, making sure to vary the sizes and colors to create the illusion of depth. Do not allow all of the dots to be uniform in shape. Fat flakes may be oddly lumpy. Small flakes may appear as short dashes. If you make the mistake of painting every falling flake as a dash of the same length and color it will end up looking like pouring rain. Take care to see how the pattern of flakes draws the eye -- and remember, it’s easier to put a few more in than take them out! If you make a mistake and feel the falling flakes must be changed, you’ll be forced to wipe out quite a bit of your painting.

You may try using white spray paint to make snow. Carefully drift the spray over your finished painting. Be cautious, however, as once it’s there any changes you try to make will be obvious and usually unsuccessful. Perhaps a more effective means to make incidental snowflakes is to use a razor blade to shave off bits of pale-colored pastel onto the surface of your finished painting, laid flat on a tabletop. A second pass can be done with a very light drift of pure white pastel to simulate the nearest and brightest snowflakes. When the results please you, place a piece of clean newsprint over the top of the finished painting and briskly rub the flat of your hand over it to burnish the bits into the paper.

Cold Blue, 9" x 12"

Last Snow, 9" x 12"