I love red in a winter landscape. And I love ice in the sunlight. Every winter I want to do a picture with ice, but until now I haven't been able to get the effect I was looking for. This time I think it finally turned out right.

Christmas in the cottage in the cwm, featuring my mom's cat, Pearlie. This is my digital artwork, not a photograph except for the cat.

I created a version of this picture several years ago, but I never posted it because I wasn't quite satisfied. So I decided to take another look and polish it a bit. I ended up changing more than I had intended, but I'm pretty happy with it now. Here's the earlier version.

I love sitting outside around dusk and watching the fireflies!

You are expected, just follow the lights.

Here's a winter/fantasy scene in the “cwm” in the mountains that I've used for several other pictures. This time it's winter, and the solitary cottage dweller is expecting company.

Cwm Solitude
Cwm Waterfall
Cwm Autumn Frost

This is a night version of one of my favorite scenes—Glittering Caves of Aglarond

“Immeasurable halls, filled with an everlasting music of water that tinkles into pools. Gems and crystals and veins of precious ore glint in the polished walls; and the light glows through folded marbles, shell-like, translucent as the living hand of Queen Galadriel. There are columns of white and saffron and dawn-rose, fluted and twisted into dreamlike form, they spring up from many-colored floors to meet the glistening pendants of the roof; wings, ropes, curtains fine as frozen clouds; spears, banners, pinnacles of suspended palaces! Still lakes mirror them; a glimmering world looks up from dark pools covered with clear glass.”
—The Lord of the Rings, Book III, Chapter 8

This is the Christmas version of my seasonal “snow globe” idea.

“‘Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.’
And, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.”
December 13, 2016

Even the longest day of the year eventually turns to dusk, and the fireflies come out.

“Silence was pleased: now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the Moon
Rising in clouded Majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveiled her peerless light,
And o're the dark her Silver Mantle threw.”
— Paradise Lost

I created this picture in Vue to use for a mural on my bedroom wall.

This is a Christmas version of Wind in the Pines. It was inspired by a visit to my grandfather's timber farm, which is why the pines are in rows. It's almost like being out in the forest, just a little more orderly!

This is a reverse of Pass of Light; I basically just turned the (virtual) camera around. It didn't take nearly as long to render without the glowing translucent castle in the background.