This is the eleven in the series of thirteen paintings picturing the musical works of four Antonio Vivaldi’s popular concertos: RV 269, RV 315, RV 293,  RV 297, which together make up The Four Seasons. This huge artwork, over 17 feet in length, was tough to photograph, but I needed to document the visual progress, and this first photo fulfills that need. Turning around and looking at the real artwork, it is much prettier in person, and already presenting a dramatic image.

In the photograph you are not seeing the contrast between the stripping and the background where I first spread a light gray layer.  Over that I then pulled across multiple thin layers of pure white.  I am using an image of pure white snow, in this artwork, for we have received plenty of that, lately. My challenge, with this work,  is to display this feeling of fresh snow cover across the entire seventeen feet of canvas that is Winter Allegro, creating diversity and multiple areas of interest.

Starting with a light gray background gives me the contrast to build up an image on white canvas.  Somehow I will use this same technique for the rest of the bare canvas, and besides using gray,  I will need to find ways to  add color in the background.  Lately, with my backgrounds I have used a lot of stripping for its musical effects and interest adding looks,  and that should work here by using cold blues mixed with a lot of white.  I have used so much white that I ran out of it, and had to pick up some locally, 40% off, of course.

The capturing of that winter feeling, for this artwork, is a lot easier to do while living in the season. Actually, I try to do that as much as I can with this series.  For example my last Vivaldi was the last movement of Autumn, and now I am, of course, working on the first movement of Winter.  When  I compete this work, next up will be the first movement of Spring, followed by the final artwork in this series, the third movement of Summer, sometime this summer.

Up next, I am turning around getting up from my computer, putting on my apron, and hopefully before nights end covering up the rest of the white canvas with white paint.

Scott Von Holzen