Winter Thaw, Barn Island

6"x8" oil on linen mounted on archival panel

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Wow, this morning was a winter heat wave, 43 degrees F! Which makes for a great day of painting outside. The sun was trying to burn off the haze, but never did quite succeed. Much of our previous snowfall has melted. Only stubborn little patches of ice persist, though most have yielded to mud. Tide was going out, which I wasn't aware of until I heard some ice pulling against some crackly reeds along the edge of the water.  Most of the grasses have faded to a pale golden wheat color at this point in the winter, though I did see a few tufts of faded green emerging from some snowy clumps.  As I was setting up to paint today, a big egret came in for a landing behind me.  He became too busy stalking his prey to worry about me though. Life in the marsh goes on.