Empty Space

As predicted, snow came and blanketed the lake ice, save for a thin line of black ice where the open water had been a few days ago. It was not in any great quantity, but enough to render the scene featureless.

I went out looking for simplicity, inspired by Bruce Percy, and discovered how difficult it is to achieve. I suppose that's the mark of a master artist: to make the difficult seem easy.

Although he uses mostly a square format, I felt more comfortable with a traditional 3:2. With just two elements, rocks and the ice strip, the eye bounces between them. I struggled to determine which, if either, should dominate and tried numerous versions, with both bolder and softer elements, before landing on this rendition.