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Celebrate the season at Third Friday art walk "Early Winter" by Marianne Nielson, at Art du Jour Gallery. Thursday Dec 15, 2016 at 9:00 AM Vickie Aldous Mail Tribune @VickieAldous Rogue Valley artists celebrate the season with winter scenes displayed at Art du Jour Gallery and Rogue Gallery & Art Center in downtown Medford. Representations of everything from chilly landscapes to an ornament shining against a dark backdrop of pine needles are included in "Winterfest," an exhibit displayed on the back wall of Art du Jour Gallery. In its Salon space, artist Charity Hubbard will show portraits, architectural paintings and landscapes from all seasons. Art du Jour, 213 E. Main St., will offer the opportunity to meed Hubbard and participating Rogue Valley artists from 5 to 8 p.m. during the Third Friday Art Walk in downtown Medford. There will be live music by Minstrel Streams and appetizers. The exhibits continue through January. The Rogue Gallery & Art Center, 40 S. Bartlett St., also will stay open until 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 16. The gallery will present its artists' interpretation of the theme "Icons" — along with Laurie Brown's works made from meticulously rolled strips of paper — through Wednesday, Dec. 21.  While many artists paint outdoors, especially in warmer weather, Hubbard made her first attempt at painting in the snow several years ago. A client had commissioned four paintings of a stately home set in all four seasons, and only the winter scene was left. Hubbard tramped out, sheltered her easel from falling snowflakes with an umbrella, and completed a one-hour color study that guided her in making a finished painting. "Painting outdoors is always a challenge, but it's a lot of fun," Hubbard says. "There are always mishaps with painting outside. I've dealt with bugs in the paint, snow in the palette and balancing an umbrella over my head. There's a sense of life you get outside, and you can capture the atmosphere, nuances and subtleties." Hubbard says her experience painting outside helps her fill in those missing subtleties, even when she is working from a photograph. Two of her winter landscapes in the Art du Jour exhibit were created using photographs she took in the rural area around Eagle Point. "Early Snow" captures the slant of light and tree shadows created by a low winter sun. "Abandoned in Winter" shows rural buildings with one side glowing warmly in the light, in contrast with the shiver-inducing whites and blues of the snow. Some of Hubbard's paintings feature local scenes of vineyards, barns, landscapes and people, including the musicians in the group The Fret Drifters. The "Winterfest" wall of art includes a painting by Marilyn Zupan of a distant church steeple poking up from a stark winter landscape; a Vincent van Gogh-style pastel of a star-filled night sky and manger scene by Ruth Heath; and Marianne Nielson's painting of realistic evergreen trees fading to abstract purple at the edges. For the Rogue Gallery's "Paper Designs" exhibit, Brown invested hundreds of hours, pounds of paper and thousands of yards of thread to make each of her large pieces from rolled strips of paper. She started making art with spools of paper after coming across a photo of herself at a summer camp making jewelry from rolled-up strips of magazines. Brown's work is inspired by nature, landscapes, travel and other artists — including French painter Georges-Pierre Seurat, who created scenes using tiny dots of color. The artists who belong to Rogue Gallery offer widely differing interpretations of the theme of "Icons." Images range through the American buffalo, a traditional angel icon, Crater Lake and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The Rogue Gallery's regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays. Call 541-772-8118 or see www.roguegallery.org. Art du Jour's regular hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Call 541-770-3190 or see artdujourgallery.com.