Snowscape

"Burnscape Color Study"   SOLD
watercolor/ink on paper, 2009
12" x 9" (30.48cm x 22.86cm)

This watercolor is from my Burnscape series. Living in southern California and seeing so many wildfires it would be easy to focus on the destruction. My attraction for the burned landscape isn't for it's destruction but instead how it modifies the landscape, turning it into a charcoal terrain... it is rebirth, the stripping away of old layers for a fresh start, the way Mother Nature intended.

The fascinating thing about some burned areas is the white ash from certain types of vegetation. It appears like snow. I sometimes refer to these as California fall or winterscapes. A bit eerie to walk through.

This was a color study done on a sheet of 12" x 9" paper, hence the color test splotches.
Experimenting here with finding that balance between the image looking like a snowscape initially then the realization that it is a burnscape.105

Click on image for larger view