TOLEDO MAGAZINE

Frozen in time: Winter’s beauty captured in art

"Wildwood Deer Running across the Front Yard," photograph printed on handmade paper painted with silver pigment, by Penny Gentieu.

"Wildwood Deer Running across the Front Yard," photograph printed on handmade paper painted with silver pigment, by Penny Gentieu.

It’s a subdued palette that brushes winter — plenty of brown and gray, to be sure, but in an expanse of hues.

Browns run to auburn and ochre, wheaty and tawny, cinnamon and sepia, coffee and khaki, copper and bronze, chestnut and mahogany. Grays are tinted with pinks, silvers, blues, and yellows; especially interesting are thin gray skies veiling pale suns.

"Winter Beauty," acrylic on board, by Aaron Bivins.

The most colorful rewards are often when sun or moon straddle the horizon. Look for plump moons rising at 6:07 p.m. Tuesday, 7:18 p.m. Wednesday, 8:29 p.m. Thursday, and 9:41 p.m. Friday.

Winter, especially a mild one like this, is a fine time to practice visual calisthenics. Encourage your eyes to hunt for shape and texture, line and proportion. Where is harmony and dissonance, symmetry and contrast?

Six local artists who have trained their vision on winter in northwest Ohio lent their work to this Toledo Magazine page.

PHOTO GALLERY: Click here to view images

Carol Pletz notes the enchantment of snow.

"Snow covers the land and makes everything beautiful. People love looking at winter scenes, through windows or in paintings, from some cozy vantage point. The eye delights in the blue winter skies and deep purple shadows of trees and bushes on snow. In the peaceful, still days of winter, we turn inward and the earth waits and prepares, through long quiet stretches, for spring. And in this quiet time, I paint." Her work can be seen at Collector’s Corner in the Toledo Museum of Art, Fenwick Gallery, 3433 W. Alexis Rd., and American Gallery, 6600 Sylvania Ave., Sylvania.

Aaron Bivins, painting for more than 30 years, shows his work at the American Gallery and, through March 10, at 20 North Gallery, 18 N. St. Clair St.

When Betsy Ford reached her 60s and found tennis too difficult, she studied watercolor painting at the museum. Now in her late 80s, she has enjoyed outdoor (plein air) painting locally, and on trips with her daughter to beautiful locales around the world.

John Trumbull has painted for pleasure and as a commercial artist for 45 years. His work is at American Gallery.

For the image on today’s page, Penny Gentieu photographed deer as they made their way across her front yard near Wildwood Preserve Metropark. She printed the photo on thin, handmade Japanese paper on which she painted with silver pigment. Her pieces are at Collector’s Corner and gentieu.com.

Scott Ziegler remembers "the clear and tremendous sense of magic" that paintings gave him when he was a child. His work is at Hudson Gallery, 5645 N. Main St., Sylvania.

Contact Tahree Lane at 419-724-6075 or tlane@theblade.com.