How to paint an abstracted landscape

The current project we are working on in my painting class is an abstracted landscape. The idea is to take a series of photographs of any landscape, then collage them onto a plain piece of paper. When assembling them together for the collage, we had to decide on the composition, and be sure to 'confuse' the elements. That is, turn some pictures upside down or around the wrong way. We then had to paint the composition and make it work as an abstract piece.

The photographs I chose to use, were some I had taken when I was in Minneapolis for the Christmas/New Year of 2010. There was snow everywhere when I visited, which was something that I had never really seen. I was completely blown away by not just the amount (in some places it was a metre deep!), but the whiteness of it.

I was spending the day hanging out at the music store where Matthew worked because he was rostered on, and thought I'd go exploring for a little bit. So I donned my beanie and gloves, and my awesomely warm jacket (to match my amazingly warm fluffly snow boots!), and prepared to brave the minus 10 degrees celcius or so temperatures outside. The sun was shining and it was really quite lovely to walk around in. I just had to be careful not to slip on any of the ice that was sitting on the cleared sections of path. The sound of the snow crunching under my feet is something that even now, I can hear if I shut my eyes and think about it. I loved it. It was so different and beautiful. So I walked away from the shopping centre and heading towards the frozen lake at the bottom of the carpark.

Frozen Lake at the bottom of Westridge Market Shopping Centre in Minnetonka

My nose became numb pretty quickly, but the rest of me was warm enough. I had my camera and I did have my iPod, but actually didn't listen to it. Instead I listened to the silence. It was amazing. For such a built up suburban location, the lack of noise was astounding. So I listened to the crunching of the snow under my feet, and not a lot else. I don't recall hearing any birds or other animals, and for someone from Australia, who has never been in that kind of environment, the lack of 'other' noise was something to savour.

So back to the art project at hand. I took these and some more of the pictures I took and collaged them into a circular pattern. I used the bare trees and the parallel lines of the timber structure to create a focus: a shape that leads you into the picture and encourages you to stay and look further.

The result is still a work in progress, but I am happy with it so far. I am going to leave it sketchy in style around the edges - I think it fits the picture. The trees and timber are all going to remain in the Burnt Umber that I have started them in, adding in only a little of black to deepen the tone. The white will be coloured with purple and blue to show shadows, but other than that, I am not planning on doing too much else to it. I think it's going to be an interesting picture to look into.