Collection
Winter Moonlight
Two snowy landscapes use pale light, dark trees and small touches of warmth.
Winter Moon Over Red Bird in Aspen Forest
M. Donna GoodWinter Moonlight pairs two snowy landscapes under the moon: Winter Moon Over Red Bird in Aspen Forest and Winter Moon in Pine Valley. Both set strong tree shapes against a lighter sky, and both hold a small warm note in a cool season.
In Winter Moon Over Red Bird in Aspen Forest, three tall trunks rise through the full height of the sheet. Their white bark is built from layers of cream, gold, violet and gray, and their pale columns set a steady rhythm across the painting, like the pillars of a quiet hall. The moon hangs at the upper left, a pale gold disc in a sky that moves from blue to rose to lavender.
In Winter Moon in Pine Valley, a snowy hillside slopes from the lower left toward the right, and a single tall pine stands at the left with its branches heavy with white. A long line of smaller pines runs across the middle of the sheet toward the horizon, and the moon rises just above them. Above the moon, a band of deep blue and violet carries a long streak of gold cloud, as though the last light of evening still lingers.
The two paintings arrange their trees in different patterns. The aspen picture asks the eye to move between the trunks, from one pale column to the next. The pine valley leads the eye across the tops of the trees and up into the sky.
Each painting finds its warmth in a single small note. In the aspen forest, it is the red bird at the center, and in the pine valley, it is the round gold moon. Look away from that warm note for a moment, then return, and notice how readily the eye finds it again.
Snow plays its own part in both paintings. It falls as flecks of white of every size, scattered across the sky, the trunks and the pines. Long violet shadows reach across the snow, and the snow itself carries warm and cool notes of cream, lavender and blue. Those shadows give the snow its shape and join it to the rest of the landscape.
A stand of quaking aspen grows as one clone, its trunks connected by a common root system.
Enlarge Painting brings each snowflake up close, sitting on the layered color beneath it. Both paintings also hang in The Winter Room, and the pine valley joins Winter in Color.
The Paintings
Winter Moon Over Red Bird in Aspen Forest
M. Donna GoodWatercolorThree tall aspen trunks rise through the full height of the painting, their white bark built from layers of cream, gold, violet and gray. A pale gold moon hangs at the upper left in a sky of blue, rose and lavender. In the middle distance, smaller aspens stand in a row against dark green pines. The red bird perches on a branch at the center, the brightest color in the painting. Snow drifts across the whole scene as tiny flecks of white, and a few warm leaves still cling to the far branches in touches of rust and orange.
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.