Poinsettia by a Frosty Window

For the kind of December afternoon when you want something seasonal but not cluttered. A clean cluster of red poinsettia bracts in a clear glass tumbler sits on a pale windowsill, with a frost-etched window behind catching diffused winter light.

The composition is unusually simple for a Christmas piece — almost all the color is concentrated in two places, the red bracts and the dark green leaves, with everything else in cool gray-blues and bone whites. The frost pattern on the window is its own quiet meditation in linework.