Time for a Snowscene

Snow at Bishop's Street Within: Extract from Crossing Borders: www.guildhallpress.co.uk

Just thought I'd get this one in early (just before it snows out there) Thing about snow-lovely to look at nightmare to negotiate. In fact now that I think of it there's no negotiation at all. This wee scene was painted sometime around 2001. It depicts Bishop's Street Within. (within the old walled city of Derry) The classical building on the right is the local courthouse- good craic to be had in there! The building on the left is the Masonic Lodge (no craic at all in there) Been a few unfortunate changes though since this was painted. Those beautiful mature trees, (God knows how long they'd been there) have since been "removed". Yes! - Cut down. Seems that the powers that be didn't take into account what a gift those were to artists looking to paint the scene, especially during snowstorms. Ah well...

The other thing, the one commandment, about painting snow scenes is simply this -wait until the sun comes out! There is nothing to paint when the sky is overcast. During that, there are basically three colours: black; white and grey well maybe fifty shades of grey (no pun intended) No, when snow falls and then lies, wait until the sun comes out. Believe me it's worth it.

The whole world transforms. The colours are breathtaking. Look at the scene above. Not only was this scene sunlit, it was also captured late afternoon as the sun was going down. This threw the entire foreground into shadow creating a dark tonal area at the front of the picture. This shadow also meant a range of blue-purples right across the front and mid areas of the painting. The colour of snow is also greatly influenced by the cobalt blue of the sky above, hence the blueish nature of the snow there.

 Contrast that, if you will, look further down the street, about 400 yards away you can see the War Memorial in the Diamond (centre of Derry's inner city) highlighted by the setting sun. But, not just the background but the sunset also just catches the tops of some buildings. Not only does this add interest in terms of composition it also means the yellow colours are directly complimentary to the foreground blues and purples. Oh, I love it when a plan comes together...