At Dawn

There is a week in the year when the world loses its season. Snow still lies on the ground, but the road is already wet, and the sky reflects in puddles—too blue for winter, too cold for spring. You stand and cannot understand: is this an end or a beginning?

I painted this work almost from life—managed to capture the state in an hour and a half before the clouds changed their pattern. Pink clouds against turquoise—this is not embellishment, they really were like that, and I'm still not sure I rendered them accurately. The poplars on the right still stand bare, like musical staves without notes, and the entire space of the road sounds like a pause between two measures—winter and spring. I think if you look long enough, you can hear the dripping.

Technically, speed was crucial here. I laid down the background with a single wash, not letting the layers dry—hence the soft transitions from sky into tree silhouettes. The cars and the pole on the left are sketched minimally: two or three dark spots, so the eye understands the scale but isn't distracted. The entire work holds together through tonal relationships, not through drawing.

What does this air smell like—melting snow or first earth?