Winter and Chickadees make for great painting subject matter. In fact paint your winter blues with some warm ochres and color will affect your mood. Art is the experience of meaning. And making art will add a dimension to life.
Those that want some art therapy, may need some techniques to paint their experience because it is similar to writing and understanding verbs and nouns. Winter blues can come to life in new ways with color!

No this is not a painting it is a woodblock print-oil base ink on cotton fabric. It is from my body of work over the last forty years. I teach woodblock printing at Pt Reyes Seashore Field Institute, Sorensen's Resort(in Sierras of CA) and Laguna Foundation, CA.
Artists often refer to their older works as OLD. Old is not the way friends, patrons or collectors see the image. Ring in the New Year and bring the OLD too! Beauty is timeless.

Here is an oil from my "Impressionism Unraveled" class at Pt Reyes National Seashore. I demonstrated adding Monet's secret color lavender at the end of the painting.
Impressionism is about the color of light, not the actual color of objects up close to your eye-green leaves, green trees, green grass, etc
Water lily pads are green but the glare of the sun makes them appear the color of white light. Using naples yellow works! Here is the watercolor demo.

While there is not this much snow in November, it is well worth painting snow scenes when the snow is flying. The low light is here in November as are the cold temperatures which affect the colors and how it "feels". In Vermont the low light skims along the ground. In Colorado it is in the middle sky (which is why we can see so far there). In California, the light reflects from the moisture in the atmosphere and is "all over." Emphasize this by using dark, mid-tones or lightest lights in the sky. Most of all record light, which I think of as the color of butter, or your paintings can be "too cold."

I drove by this Vermont Farm in Tunbridge and saw the white buildings with the faded fall cornfield. The corn said fall as well as the muted colors. Being close to winter, the Vermont light is very low.
I painted a very bright painting and then over laid the fall tones. Its the same action nature takes. The plants freeze on the outside and the colors fade from the surface before the whole plant dies and looses its vibrancy.

"First Snow" oil 11"x 14" $550

Signs are here of the first snow and snow is in the rain! Snow is fun to paint because the painting can be done as usual and then lay the snow on the landscape just like nature does.
When the snow gets so deep it covers fences and roads and driveways. Try painting the snow first-thick and heavy paint likereplicates the element it is. Snow is only light as it falls but as it piles up it compresses.

Color, color everywhere and how to paint it? First I underpaint in a warm color. Then paint as you would right over the underpainting and leave some of it showing to give the painting an inner glow. When I let it dry it didn't have the glow of low, reflected light that happens in fall. I added a glaze, like tonalists used to do, but with Indian Gold, a transparent ochre: even over the "white."
Voila! the glow appeared.