“I particularly noticed some tall lilies, which grew on both sides of the way, with large dazzlingly white flowers, set off by the universal green. It was now dark enough for me to see that every flower was shining with a light of its own. Indeed it was by this light that I saw them, an internal, peculiar light, proceeding from each, and not reflected from a common source of light as in the daytime. This light sufficed only for the plant itself, and was not strong enough to cast any but the faintest shadows around it, or to illuminate any of the neighbouring objects with other than the faintest tinge of its own individual hue.

“A little forest of wild hyacinths was alive with exquisite creatures, who stood nearly motionless, with drooping necks, holding each by the stem of her flower, and swaying gently with it, whenever a low breath of wind swung the crowded floral belfry.

“In darker nooks, by the mossy roots of the trees, or in little tufts of grass, each dwelling in a globe of its own green light, glowed the glowworms. I saw great strong-armed beetles, hurrying about with most unwieldy haste, looking apparently for glowworms; for the moment a beetle espied one, it pounced upon it, and bore it away, in spite of its feeble resistance.… It then took the glowworm and held its luminous tail to the dark earthly pellet; when lo, it shot up into the air like a sky-rocket. Just like a rocket too, it burst in the air, and fell in a shower of the most gorgeously coloured sparks of every variety of hue; golden and red, and purple and green, and blue and rosy fires crossed and inter-crossed each other, beneath the shadowy heads, and between the columnar stems of the forest trees.

“In other parts, the whole of the immediately surrounding foliage was illuminated by the interwoven dances in the air of splendidly coloured fire-flies, which sped hither and thither, turned, twisted, crossed, and recrossed, entwining every complexity of intervolved motion. Here and there, whole mighty trees glowed with an emitted phosphorescent light. You could trace the very course of the great roots in the earth by the faint light that came through; and every twig, and every vein on every leaf was a streak of pale fire.

“The moon was high enough to send a great many of her rays down between the trees, and these rays were unusually bright, and sight-giving.”

— Phantastes, by George MacDonald

“I lay and looked through the eastern window of my room. The curtains of pale blue silk fell like a cataract over the windows. A large green marble basin, which stood on a low pedestal in a corner of my room, was overflowing like a spring, and a stream of clear water was running over the carpet. And where this carpet, which I had myself designed to imitate a field of grass and daisies, bordered the course of the little stream, the grass-blades and daisies seemed to wave in a tiny breeze that followed the water's flow.

“My dressing-table was of black oak, with drawers all down the front. These were elaborately carved in foliage. I happened to fix my eye on a little cluster of ivy-leaves. The first of these was evidently the work of the carver; the next looked curious; the third was unmistakable ivy. I saw that the branches and leaves designed upon the curtains of my bed were slightly in motion. Springing from the bed, my bare feet alighted upon a cool green sward; and I found myself under the boughs of a great tree, whose top waved in the golden stream of the sunrise with many interchanging lights.

“Faint traces of a footpath, much overgrown with grass and moss, were discernible along the right bank. ‘This,’ thought I, ‘must surely be the path into Fairy Land”.’

— Phantastes, by George MacDonald

“When March blows its horn,
your barns will be filled with hay and corn.”

Anyone up for ice skating?

A winter night in the Glen of the Twins.

“Beyond them was a wide level space, as though the floor of a great hall had been cut in the side of the hill…, and along each wall stood an aisle of trees.… At the far end the rock-wall was sheer, but at the bottom it had been hollowed back into a shallow bay with an arched roof: the only roof of the wall, save the branches of the trees…. A little stream … fell tinkling down the sheer face of the wall, pouring in silver drops, like a fine curtain in front of the arched bay.

“Treebeard lifted two great vessels and stood them on the table. They seemed to be filled with water, but he held his hands over them, and immediately they began to glow, one with a golden and the other with a rich green light;… Looking back, the hobbit saw that the trees in the court had also begun to glow … until every leaf was edged with light: some green, some gold, some red as copper.”
— The Lord of the Rings, Book III, Chapter 4: Treebeard

Is this the Ship of Dreams?

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!

“To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,
Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,
To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Luke 1:77-79

I recently studied more in depth about how to work with clouds in the digital art software that I use, and it left me inspired to do a scene in the clouds instead of my usual landscapes. Would you like to be in that hot-air balloon?