"Lingering Snow" and the Results for April's Contest

"Lingering Snow"     Acrylic on Claybord     8" x 10"

Oh man, I meant to post this much earlier but I got caught up in a few things I'm working on right now. But now...

DRUM ROLL please....... And the winner for our Contest for April of 2013 IS.....

RENE MICHAELS!!! 

AGAIN! You are quite the lucky one, my dear!  I was super shocked when I saw your name come up as the winner, thinking "Wow, what are the chances!?!" And then I realized that you've pretty much played along with me every month so far so you're bound to win something at least once, and now twice. Congratulations! A beautiful print of Lavendar Fields, your favorite painting of mine, will be on it's way soon. And I already have your address from when you were one of the winners back in February, so no need to email me. =D

"Lavender Fields"     Acrylic on Archival Canvas Board     5" x 7"

As for my new painting at the top of this post, well, it's my April submission for The Virtual Paintout, though I didn't quite get it in on time so I can't formally post it to the blog. Aghh - I missed it by only two hours. Gahh! Hahaa, oh well. =P I know I did it so that's all I really care about, well, that and the fact that I like how it turned out. =) You should have seen it before - it was a salvage piece, that's for sure. But I stuck with it, and it sure was worth it. Here's how it looked before the major overhaul where I stopped looking at the photo and just decided to go with my instincts and look to other artist's work and see how they do it:

 I really enjoyed our location this month, which was Bulgaria. It was absolutely beautiful, with lovely forests and so many beautiful places to stroll around and paint from. But I fell in love with this little creek full of rocks all mounded over with snow, lined with beautiful pines up and down it's shores. It was such a sweet and serene scene, and I found myself feeling as if I had stumbled upon something no one had ever seen before, like it was some untouched beauty made by God that was being discovered for the first time. Perhaps it was the crisp whiteness of the snow, or the way the trees are all huddled around the stones, protecting them and guarding them from any unkind visitors. It was just... Serene. And I loved it.