Kathy Ford puts the final touches on her 37th Christmas painting on Tuesday, which is to be displayed in the living room window of her home on the west end of Lake Street in Saranac Lake. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

SARANAC LAKE — Kathy Ford switched on her stereo and the sounds of Bobby Helm’s “Jingle Bell Rock” filled her home on Lake Street as she set to work putting the finishing touches on this year’s Christmas painting, which will be installed for all passers-by to enjoy by tonight.

This is Ford’s 37th year turning her living room window on the west end of Lake Street into a sylvan winter art gallery. This year, it is a three-panel country scene of red barns and rolling snowy hills, with skaters, birds and snowmen dotting the landscape.

“I went folk-arty this year,” Ford said.

Ford planned to finish the painting on Tuesday night and her husband Lonnie plans to hang it with care and light it today.

Ford started painting the Sunday after Thanksgiving, fitting it in during the couple’s busy social schedule. She doesn’t work on the painting until 2 a.m. like she did when her kids were young, but she still puts in many eight-hour days between Thanksgiving and the start of the Christmas season.

She paints the entire thing to be viewed in two directions — inside and out.

“We want to see it on the inside, too,” Ford said.

It takes a lot of accurate work to scale the proportions of her reference image up to the size of a big picture window, spread across three canvases.

“Art always involves math,” Ford said.

She used to paint right on her picture window. But after it cracked for the second time, she switched to large acrylic panes. Since Aubuchon Hardware burned down earlier this year, she has to go to Malone for her clear canvas.

Her studio is right in her home, and is filled with supplies and some of her watercolors. Ford currently has artwork featured at the Adirondack Artists Guild on Main Street in Saranac Lake.