In a clearing on the side of a mountain sits a little village, with a church in the center surrounded by houses and cottages and barns. Warm lights shine from the windows and colored lights spangle two of the bare winter trees. In front of the church in the middle sits a bright Nativity scene and the village Christmas tree, as the lights within the church send the stained glass patterns streaming out in jeweled colors on the snow. Nearby a family of snowmen are toasting marshmallows over a bonfire.

Anyone up for ice skating?

A winter night in the Glen of the Twins.

The early bird gets the berry! I love winter landscapes, expecially with a little red in them. And I'm always trying to get snow and crystals to sparkle and refract light. And I also love chickadees :-) So this was a natural combination!

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.

Happy New Year!

If you follow the path in Welcome to the Cwm down to the bonfire and look to the right, you might see the Northern Lights.

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 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.

A cold and barren landscape doesn't have to be grim. I did a phoenix-like abstract work before, so I thought an ice phoenix would be an interesting variation. Created in Vue, with the streaming effect done in Paint Shop Pro. The texture on the phoenix is from the background of Waltz of the Snowflakes.

A fantasy winter landscape created in Vue. I wanted a winter scene that focused mainly on the landscape but was obviously fantasy. This was also an experiment in working with snow, getting it to sparkle and reflect the light for an “other-worldly” effect. It was an extremely long render on account of all the lights and reflective and translucent surfaces, but I was able to just run it in stops and starts over about a month.