First Snow

First Snow

16" x 20"
Acrylic on Canvas

I couldn’t wait for the first snow. I knew it would be beautiful—wide swathes of sparkling snow on the pastures, the tree trunks dark espresso from the moisture, their branches perfectly outlined with white, chubs of snow climbing up the windward sides of the trucks, sticking to the rough bark wherever it could defy gravity. 

Every tree holding the snow in a distinctive pattern: the oaks with clean, graceful branches, every little branchlet lit by snow, bunched globs at the junction of larger limbs spreading from the trunk. More dollops resting atop the remaining rusty leaves—a surprise of color in the nearly black and white landscape. 

The piñon pines look as though snowy popcorn was dumped over them, filling the needled fingers of every branch, the pinecones framed with frost like a postcard image. 

Deep green against the slate sky, the towering Ponderosa pines are garnished with impossibly large clumps of snow that become snow bombs, leaving a trail of snow dust in their wake as they slip from the limbs and plunge toward the ground. 

Late in the day, the sun peeks out and everything bursts with color—but just for a moment before the sun slides behind the gray wall to the west. It starts to snow again in the cool, waning light.