Snowfall, Brasstown, North Carolina

This is a small (5 X 7") pastel done for a friend. While I was in North Carolina in late February there was a rare snowfall. Being from the Midwest, I had just left dirty snow and treacherous ice behind, so I was not all that excited. The locals however were enchanted. I must admit that it was indeed rather enchanting to see these beautiful mountains and trees with a sparkling clean snowcover. So I forgot about the past and felt inspired by the present and gave it all a new eye. I have found that these pastels don't look as good on the computer as they look in person. Recently I have sent some images to a gallery and others to enter some shows and I find myself unimpressed by the look of my pastels. Enlarged, they look all scratchy. I don't have that with my oils. If you're in the neighborhood, stop by and I will show you the originals. What I like about doing these landscapes in pastel and in oil is the textures of background over the sky and foreground trees over the rest and trying to get the color intensity right. That's why we paint.