More about winter painting

Paintings this page by Aldro Hibbard, The Rockport Art Association is selling a book about him here.

Before I go into equipment for winter painting I want to do another general sort of post on the subject.

People who hear that I paint outside in the winter are always so sure that it is heroic and that it takes great ability to withstand cold and hardship to do. Thats not usually the case. I get cold EASILY. Yet I am almost never cold when I am painting outside, because I have got the right equipment. There are times when it is 5 or 10 below zero when it IS extreme, but anything above about 1o degrees is very comfortable. In fact I like it when I look at the forecast and the prediction is for cold. Cold days are clear, and have good light. Gray days are warm. So the cold is generally my friend, I want it cold.

What I don't want is wind. You can paint in any temperature if you can get out of the wind. But if the wind is blowing on your face and it is zero or below you are going to be unable to take it for very long. On days with any wind I like to be down in the woods or in the lee of some building. Whatever it takes, you have to get out of the wind when it is super cold.

I used to drive an Expedition that had four wheel drive, and it was a pretty good snow painting car, but it ate too much. Now I drive a Lincoln or my wife's old Volvo wagon, neither one is particularly adapted to off road driving and I don't do any. It can be hard to find a place to park along a winter road, but there is usually someplace. I paint along frozen streams and often at the point where the stream cuts under the road there is a little bridge and the area on either side of that is plowed. There are often plowed areas to provide access to hikers in public access allowed properties.Often I am out in the sticks in Maine or on some country road in Vermont and I park the car and set up behind it. People can see me from a long way out on a straightaway and they go around me.

In the winter it is almost always best to paint with a buddy, on the road it is nice, but in the woods it is essential. A friend of mine fell down along an icy stream in northern Vermont and broke his leg a few years ago, had he been alone he might have frozen to death out there. So you need a buddy if you are painting down in the woods.

There are some things that you need in your pockets when its cold too. You need to have a pair of pliers in your kit, particularly if you are working on a French easel. Your fingers can get cold and you won't be able to turn the wing nuts on your easel to collapse the legs at the end of the day. I also carry matches, you never know when you might need to light a large cigar, and butane lighters quit working in the cold. If for some reason, you were to get stuck out there (I have never had it happen but I guess it could) matches would be a real cool thing to have.I will return tomorrow and post about the kind of clothing it takes to be comfortable out there in all of that lovely snow.