“I found that my boat was floating motionless by the grassy shore of a little island. The water was deep to the very edge; and I sprang from the little boat upon a soft grassy turf. The island seemed rich with a profusion of all grasses and low flowers. No trees rose skywards, except in one place, where a few plants of the gum-cistus formed a kind of natural arbour. The whole island lay open to the sky and sea. As I walked over the grass towards the cottage, all the flowers of childhood looked at me with perfect child-eyes out of the grass. The cottage was square, with low walls, and a high pyramidal roof. It had no windows that I could see; but there was a door in the centre of the side facing me, up to which I went...

‘I had to go through that door - the door of the Timeless - to find you; and because I went, the waters around my cottage will rise and rise, and flow and come, till they build a great firmament of waters over my dwelling. But as long as I keep my fire burning, they cannot enter. I have fuel enough for years; and after one year they will sink away again, and be just as they were before you came. I have not been buried for a hundred years now.’

She took my hand, and led me through the third door; whereupon I found myself standing in the deep grassy turf on which I had landed from the little boat, but upon the opposite side of the cottage. She pointed out the direction I must take, to find the isthmus and escape the rising waters. I had not gone very far before I felt that the turf beneath my feet was soaked with the rising waters. But I reached the isthmus in safety. It was rocky, and so much higher than the level of the peninsula, that I had plenty of time to cross. I saw on each side of me the water rising rapidly, altogether without wind, or violent motion, or broken waves, but as if a slow strong fire were glowing beneath it. Ascending a steep acclivity, I found myself at last in an open, rocky country.”

— Phantastes, by George MacDonald

“Thus I floated, till something gently touched me. It was a little boat floating beside me. How it came there I could not tell; but it rose and sank on the waters, and kept touching me in its fall, as if with a human will to let me know that help was by me. It was a little gay-coloured boat, seemingly covered with glistering scales like those of a fish, all of brilliant rainbow hues. I scrambled into it, and lay down in the bottom, with a sense of exquisite repose. Then I drew over me a rich, heavy, purple cloth that was beside me; and, lying still, knew, by the sound of the waters, that my little bark was fleeting rapidly onwards.

“Finding, however, none of that stormy motion which the sea had manifested when I beheld it from the shore, I opened my eyes; and, looking first up, saw above me the deep violet sky of a warm southern night; and then, lifting my head, saw that I was sailing fast upon a summer sea, in the last border of a southern twilight. The aureole of the sun yet shot its longest rays above the horizon-waves, and withdrew them not. It was a perpetual twilight. The stars, great and earnest, like children's eyes, bent down lovingly towards the waters; and the reflected stars within seemed to float up, as if longing to meet their embraces. But when I looked down, a new wonder met my view. For, vaguely revealed beneath the wave, I floated above my whole Past. But so indistinct were the visions, that sometimes I thought I was sailing on a shallow sea, and that strange rocks and forests of sea-plants beguiled my eye, sufficiently to be transformed, by the magic of the phantasy, into well-known objects and regions.”

— Phantastes, by George MacDonald

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

A winter version of Little House in the Big Woods.

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!

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?

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.

What could be more peaceful and refreshing than a quiet winter sunset?

This is my digital artwork, not a photograph.

This is a rework of my earlier picture, Purple Jubilee with a different color scheme. I don't actually care much for yellow myself, but I try to branch out and use all colors on occasion. I know some people really like yellow and blue together …