Life imitates art

A few days ago it was 70 degrees but I woke up to this scene very early this morning.  The kids were  excited to have another snow day.  My family back home in Minnesota would scoff; they just received 17 inches of snow.  Our 3 or 4 inches wouldn't even slow them down.

My friend Carolina encouraged me to repost my February sketchbook page.  I will save the recommended back story for the next painting, but here is the new (hopefully improved) photo of my sketchbook. 

I would have previously rejected this photo because of the shadows, but it is starting to grow on me.
I painted the scenes from memory because all the snow was gone by the time I got around to finishing the sketch.  But then this morning....



Life imitates art

(That's the moon in the background)

I can't resist posting one more picture.  The background is too busy for me but it is the best photo for showing what the page really looks like.

Snow is in the forecast

Here is my February sketchbook page.  I have been working on it for a while, and then we began having temperatures approaching 70 degrees!  There is snow in the forecast tomorrow so I thought I had better hurry up and finish and get it posted while it was still relevant.  I am posting two pictures to show you my blogging frustrations.  The first picture is from my camera.  It ALMOST allows you to see the lavendar background in the mailbox square, but turns the whites and everything else a horrible dull gray.  The second  picture is done with our cheapo scanner.  It keeps the whites white, but loses the contrast and makes the colors look neon.  I've tried making adjustments with our "paint" program, but nothing works.  So dear readers I am asking for a vote on what I should do.  Camera, scanner, or give up blogging altogether?  (replacing any of the equipment is not an option right now).