Artistic Lines
from Joan Justis
January 2017
Website: joanjustis.com
Instagram: joanjustisstudios
Libby Creek Joan Justis
Paintings filled with tinted snow provide artists with many moods to color—orange with the setting sun, yellow with purple afternoon shadows, varied grays with blowing and drifting flakes, and blue with icy streams.
Snowy landscapes always bring to my mind the paintings of John F. Carlson (1875-1947)
He was a master of aerial perspective using “changes and gradations of color distinctness and hue” to show changes of space.
One of my favorites is Spring Flood. Notice how the changes in the color create foreground, middle ground, and deep background.
His book Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting 1929 is a must for anyone studying the painting of nature. “In landscape painting the thing that is of importance to artistic expression is the ‘landscape sense’, a sense that makes us feel the weight of the mountain, feel the float of a cloud, feel the rhythmic reach of a tree, the hardness of a stone.” Now look at this painting by Carlson.
Winter Tranquility
Walter Launt Palmer (1854-1932) was encouraged to paint by his father who was an accomplished sculptor. Walter began winning prizes as a teenager. Living in New York, he became involved with the Hudson River School of painting, a nineteenth century group of romantic landscape artists, and he studied with Frederic Church. Palmer created many of his paintings from memory. He is known to have said, “Paint from memory if you can, from nature if you must.” Perhaps this is why his paintings have an ethereal tonal quality to them.
Winter Shadows Kinderhook Creek
Have you noticed all the different hues used to color the snow and atmosphere.
Two more. Hendrik Avercamp painted during the “Little Ice Age” a time of extreme cold temperatures during the 1500 and 1600’s. He lived in Amsterdam and though he was mute, his watercolor tinted drawings sold well. 
Winter Landscape
I also love Childe Hassam’s (1859-1935) painting which was shown at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, November 2011. 
Snow in Winter
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Please know that all paintings in this blog are in the public domain.
