The Foxhunt by Winslow Homer

"The Foxhunt" by Winslow Homer

Well, it's snowing here in beautiful southeastern Pennsylvania for the first time in a winter that has been very mild and quite warm. There's been a couple of freezing rains and a horrible ice covering a week or so back, but other than that I feared I'd sail through the whole season without having the pleasure of shoveling. And I'll get to it later, I promise. At least now I have an excuse to use up the rest of firewood.

Aside from the wonderful feeling of snow caving into the tops of your boots, and slipping airborne off your back steps while taking the dog out, the winter months can be a great time for the artist. Soft snow falling can make the ugliest of landscapes beautiful, and the covering of snow can be quite a nice sight for anybody who can stand for just a moment in their day to appreciate the aesthetics of nature.

I talked a while back about Pieter Bruegel's "Hunters in the Snow," which is part of his series involving the seasons, but today the covering of snow reminds me of "The Foxhunt" by 19th century Realist Winslow Homer. I liked this painting so much I did my own copy of it on a 24" by 36" canvas, the same weekend I did a copy of Homer's "Breezing Up." They were both very fun to paint. On a side note copying famous paintings you like is a very good exercise for artists; it allows you to concentrate on technique and color, and lets you learn about the artist by literally stepping into his shoes.

I tend to like Homer's paintings that have detached main characters who usually look away, or you can't see much of their face, like the boy steering the catboat in "Breezing Up," and similar to the rower in "Fog Warning." This applies also to this fox, who is actually the one being hunted as it struggles in the deep snow with impending doom circling closely above in the form of birds of prey. These crows are as unforgiving as the sea, which clashes on the shore nearby with ferocity.

Take note of the colors of the fox. How many can you count? I had fun with this one, using viridian (blue-green), Naples yellow, burnt sienna (reddish-brown), deep red, cadmium red, cadmium yellow, burnt umber, raw umber, white, and yellow ochre. And infinite combinations. Makes you think how when you look at something such as a red fox, you are seeing all kinds of colors, including ones you may not expect to see. And the snow- there's much more than just white, in the painting and in reality.

  

My Version of Foxhunt