Glittering Encasement

As promised, I'm posting the other pictures I took when we had an ice storm.  Outside was a glittering landscape that lasted one day.  The next day everything had melted and gotten slushy.  In my last post, the bamboo had all leaned down to a right angle.  I was afraid they would all be permanently bent but by the next day they had all shaken away their burdens and stood upright and ready for another day.  Always a lesson to be learned from bamboo.

Above is the lovely pattern the ice encased on the undergrowth in our woods.  It almost looks like spun sugar.

The cedar saplings in the woods got a good coating.  The ice enhanced the green and pink colors in the branches.  I take a lot of pictures mainly to record things that I wouldn't have the time to capture with plein air painting.  Plein Air seems idealistic this day and age to me anyway.  Yes, it would be great to go into the wild with one's sketchbook/canvas/what-have-you but reality for most artists is taking images like these to reference later because they have to go to work or feed the goat or whatever.  Besides, mosquitoes like the way I taste.

The ice weighs everything down and pine trees have this beautiful cascading effect.  It's dangerous because the weight often equals falling tree but the spilling and tumbling visual of these frosted needles is hard not to admire.

I'm not quite sure how this red maple got its stripes of water running down the trunk.  It's amazing to see the difference in color between the wet bark and the dry bark.  I'm trying to be aware of these things more often as I make compositions in my work.  Little nuances like these are a real treat for the viewer.

This is the creek that runs through my back yard.  It definitely attained a ghostly quality from all the ice.  I'm working on a concept for an "Appalachian Dragon" and I think this would make a great reference photo to create its habitat from.  Wouldn't you want an Appalachian Dragon in your back yard?  

Here is a shot under the russian olive near the creek.  It weeps over and I love the pattern the weeping twigs create.

This concludes my showcase of ice for now.  Who knows what lies ahead!