Collection
Winter in Color
A poinsettia, a snowman and moonlit pines bring three different moods to winter.
Winter Poinsettia Operetta
M. Donna GoodWinter in Color gathers three winter paintings with three different moods: Winter Poinsettia Operetta, Red Scarfed Snowman and Winter Moon in Pine Valley. Together they show that a single season can hold many colors.
Winter Poinsettia Operetta fills the sheet from edge to edge with leaves of red, orange and crimson, seen from above. Fine dark veins follow each leaf from its tip to its base, and where one leaf crosses another, Donna deepens the red to crimson. The title gives the painting a musical name, and the leaves do seem to sing out in every direction.
Red Scarfed Snowman stands on a rise of snow with stick arms raised in greeting. His scarf of red and white stripes trails out in the wind, and his black top hat carries a red band with a sprig of holly. Behind him, a forest of pines moves from deep green at the left to bright yellow green at the right.
Winter Moon in Pine Valley is the quietest of the three. A pale gold moon rises above a line of pines, and snow falls across the scene in flecks of white. Deep blue and violet fill the sky and the shadows on the snow.
The three paintings place their warmth in different ways. The poinsettia lets warm red fill nearly the entire sheet. The snowman gathers it into three small touches of red: the scarf, the hat band and the berries on a little bare tree. The pine valley gives it to the moon alone, a single warm note above a broad field of blue and violet.
Seen side by side, the paintings show that the amount of a color, and where it sits, matter as much as the color itself. A small red can hold a whole snowy scene, and a large red can warm an entire room.
The poinsettia has a history worth knowing. It is native to Mexico and Guatemala, and Joel R. Poinsett brought it to the United States in the early 1800s. The red shapes that read as petals are bracts, modified leaves that gather around small yellow flowers at the center.
Begin with the painting that catches your eye first, then spend a little longer with the quietest one. Enlarge Painting brings the veins of the poinsettia, the snowman’s smile and the falling snow up close. All three paintings also hang in The Winter Room.
The Paintings
Winter Poinsettia Operetta
M. Donna GoodWatercolorThe poinsettia fills the sheet from edge to edge, seen from above, its red, orange and crimson leaves radiating from a small cluster of gold and green at the center. Fine dark veins follow each leaf from its tip to its base. Where one leaf crosses another, Donna deepens the red to crimson, so the plant gains depth with every fold. The background runs loose and lively in blue, violet, green and gold, with small spatters of deep blue in the upper corners. Thin slivers of white paper read as light glancing off the leaves.
Red Scarfed Snowman
M. Donna GoodWatercolorThe snowman stands on a rise of snow with stick arms raised as though in greeting. His black top hat carries a red band trimmed with a sprig of holly, and his scarf of red and white stripes trails out to one side in the wind. Behind him, a forest moves from deep green at the left to bright yellow green at the right. Cool shadows of blue and lavender along his lower side let the white of the paper read as sunlit snow. The red of the scarf, the hat band and the berries on a small bare tree ties the picture together.
Winter Moon in Pine Valley
M. Donna GoodWatercolorA snowy hillside slopes from the lower left toward the right, and a single tall pine stands at the left, its branches heavy with white. A long line of smaller pines runs across the middle of the sheet toward the horizon. The moon rises just above the tree line, a round shape of pale gold and rose. Above it, a band of deep blue and violet carries a long streak of gold cloud. Snow falls across the scene in flecks of white of every size, and long violet shadows reach across the snow from the trees.