Japanese painting

Whiteout: Winter Storm Thor shows his artistic side

Winter Storm Thor freezes North America in his icy tentacles, but Sandeep Somasekharan wriggles free to reveal some stunning snowscapes.

When I landed in New Jersey from Spring-embraced California, Winter Storm Thor had just started flexing his muscles.

Aftermath
After a day of non-stop snowing, everything was under almost a foot of snow.

There were days of teeth-chattering cold, winds that made the temperature feel a lot colder, and storms that coated everything with snow just short of a foot thick. There were days when you couldn’t get out of your house, and there were days you had to shovel away thick snow from the driveway in the freezing cold of the night so you could take your car out in the morning. And if you stepped out on a day when it was snowing heavily, there was just one word that could do justice to Thor’s might: Whiteout.

The Blizzard
The accumulated snow would run almost knee deep in the backyard, and there was a fresh addition every day

But despite all this, winter storm Thor will stay long in my memory, as an artist. When the snow let up a bit, if you could step out and look around, there were stunning paintings that he had left behind with the only color at his disposal. He would just play around with the whites of varying intensities, in the form of washed-out skies, mist that seemed to be smudged upwards from the snow, and layers of powdery snow that coated everything in sight.

Japanese painting
In came the mist one fine day, and it just seemed the snow on the ground was smudged upwards in the canvas.
A clear day's sunset
On the days when Thor took a breather, there were fireworks in the sky as the sun went down
Sugar glazing
When the snow is very powdery, it clings on to the surface it first meets, and soon everything looks sugar frosted.
Frosted
The branches are bent with the load of the snow that landed on it. Later when the snow thaws, the branches spring upwards flinging the snow in all directions.
Dry leaves too aren't spared
Some leaves , despite being desiccated have managed to cling on to the trees. The snow covers them as well, increasing the load on the branches. Most of the leaves get blown away once the thaw happens.

While looking forward to the spring, I still can’t feel a tinge of sadness as Winter Storm Thor loses his grip. Though I won’t miss the pain he inflicted, I will miss the genius artist in him.

Love calamity artists? You should check out these other posts from The Green Ogre

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