Snow was due today. However, we only got a light smattering of sleet around midday which melted straightaway on the wet ground. Snow is rare enough in Ireland that we still look forward to it as a magical event. The last decent snow fall we had in Firhouse was about two years ago. So this snow filled post is James’s way of compensating for today’s disappointment.
The higher contrast of objects in snow is often very calligraphic, like a chinese water-ink painting on a white background. People trees, bushes and rivers appear almost black against snow. With this in mind I did the following mixed media painting.
Hunters in the Snow (below) is one of those paintings that has captivated James from the first time he saw it as a teenager. It is such a vivid scene, more of a cast spell than a mere painting.
When commissioned to create a mural for a child’s bedroom, James was given carte blanche to paint whatever he wished. Very quickly he came up with the idea of recreating the Hunter’s in the Snow scene. It was a fairly faithful rendering, but with one big exception – the human characters were replaced with animal ones. The dog in the foreground collecting the stick was a portrait of Jack, the family dog.
Images: JesseJames. Words: JesseJames.
