Winter Evening

This is a work in progress.

I obtained this picture from a postcard I liked. We had winters like this heavy with snow and we'd go out in the evening as a family, to throw snow balls and make snow men. I especially waited for a night like this to walk and meet my Mom at work and accompany her home.
It would always be so comforting to see the lights in the window and then to look forward to warming our feet inside by the warm fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate.
In this painting I am changing things like adding mountains
etc.... To suit my own vision of this particular evening.

The Original had Christmas trees in the wagon.

Since I hate cutting down trees I won't put that in there. lol

The house will be different although I like it in purple, it doesn't match the blue mountains, Not that it has to. I was thinking to make more branches on the tree outside and cover it in festive lights as well as the house which should have some hanging lights. No house with children, is ever without a snowman and country scenes always have dogs.

One day it will be finished.
When I was a kid, my friend's Dad painted bears on a log in a forest, from a post card .
It's a well known post card and I've seen the original painting in the store, but
because I watched this man paint it, it secretly meant a lot to me to see it on his wall even if it was a copy,
I loved those bears and often thought to paint them myself so I could have something similar but so far I have not reached the bear painting stage. lol
I am mainly into kids dogs and horses and of course soccer.

In any event I work slow because I am the sort of painter that requires a special hobby room
to do this sort of stuff. This way every time you walk by you can look at it and see what it needs.
Then you can work on five of them at the same time and the work becomes interesting. lol

It's a bit different from the 20 foot w x 10 foot h props I used to draw for my sons drama plays.
They took up my whole wall in the living room and everything had to be done from scratch,
starting from sewing of the material together, to making hooks to hang it and then the painting itself.
It was hard work but I had so much fun making it and it felt so good when the parents would come and stand in front of it for pictures after the play was over, with the kids.
That's mainly why I did it and this was my reward.

Walking in art museums, I always saw an artist set himself up in front of a Michael Angelo or a Leonardo da Vinci painting and try to make it as lifely looking as the actual picture. Since it takes years to paint such a picture, I often wonder how long they sat there painting it.:)