Peace in the Valley

I painted a little landscape today!

It's unusual for me to paint a landscape, and when I do it's typically more of a 'skyscape'. However, I've had a nice, peaceful scene popping up in my thoughts during quiet moments the past few days. I first thought of it while I was stuck in traffic under a sky very like the one in the painting. The mountains and the trees were far away in the real horizon as well, but instead of a Christmas tree and creatures it was just cars as far as the eye could see. Thinking of little creatures decorating a tree somewhere in the distant hills helped me keep my cool even as every single car in the state of Washington decided to merge not only without using their signals but also without actually merging. (They like to just ride along your side, slowing down when you slow down to let them in, speeding up when you speed up to give them space. It's awesome. I call it 'the Screaming Game').

This afternoon seemed like the right time to sketch my valley scene out.

Peace in the Valley

A detail of the little critters around the tree.

I included a scan of just the tree and the woodland creatures gathered around, because it's hard to see the details online. They are pretty tiny in real life which is why (I hope) the fox looks like a lunatic drew it when you blow the image up. Amy teased me earlier in the day to get off her turf (landscapes are her usual painting domain) but I think she can rest easy looking at this shaky woodland friends. She manages to somehow paint an entire church, stained glass windows and all, in a space about an inch by half inch and when viewed by magnifying glass it's an itty bitty masterpiece complete with minuscule door knockers. Meanwhile, I'm hoping to God people realize that's a squirrel in front of the tree and not something the bear left behind.

The entire painting is a little over 8x10 inches. The scan washed the colors out just a wee bit. I tried my best to adjust it in Photoshop to look more like the original painting, and this is pretty close. It gives you a good idea, anyway!

I hope everyone's having a great evening! We've been watching Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas a lot lately, and just about every song is currently stuck in my head on shuffle. So I'll leave you tonight with one of them! It's hard not to smile at this clip.