Parts of the United States had a white Christmas, but not here. So, any snow that I paint is coming from my imagination. Here’s looking forward to some of this cold sparkly stuff before too long!
Tag: snow
Blustery!
We’ve been having a lot of wind recently, with cold fronts blowing away our brief warm spells. Today we had some snow blow through, but not enough to stay on the ground, so this is from my imagination.
Cold Hands, Warm Hearts
Although our weather here in Maryland keeps teasing us with ocassional spring-like temperatures and the ground remains bare, I can have wonderful snow in my studio.
These two seem to bear a strong resemblance to the snowman I posted two weeks ago. Could they be family?
I’m Still Thinking About Snow
Our winter continues to be temperate with the occasional precipitation coming in liquid form, but I keep thinking about and painting the fluffy crystals.
Last Night’s Snow
I love the look of freshly fallen snow, especially before anyone has walked on it.
Painting snow scenes in watercolor presents it’s own challenge, since snow is white. But the snow is actually different subtle colors in the sun and shadows, and making that believable takes planning.
This picture started with a pencil sketch to determine where I wanted to place objects. I kept in mind that if I wanted snow on the top of the fence to stand out, there needed to be something darker behind it – maybe a tree off the picture plane casting a shadow. The sky and mountains behind the barn would show off the layer of snow on the roof. The snow on the ground behind the evergreen on the left had to be slightly darker so the snow on the branches would show up.
I made a sketch on my watercolor paper and then applied masking fluid to save the white of the paper for snow on the trees and the fence posts. The barn’s roof and the field were big enough that I would be able to paint around those spots. I painted in a sky and lifted out some wispy clouds. I painted in some snow-capped mountains and the shadowed side of the evergreen trees. To get an idea of how the darks would look, I painted in the shadowed side of the barn.
Painting evergreen trees with snow on them is backwards from the way I want to paint them. I want to paint the trunk, then the branches, and then put snow on them. Instead, I have to save the white of the snowy areas, paint in some shadows, then the branches, and then the darken some areas to create deeper spots in the tree. After taking the masking fluid off, I can correct the shapes and add shadows to the snow. Softening some edges also helps make the shapes look like they all belong to the same tree.
Adding shadows to the snow field gives it some slight hills. And although my value study called for a drive going to the barn, I liked the unbroken snow so much that I changed my mind and left it out. The sun shining on the side of the barn, the weeds, and the fence in the foreground adds some warmth to this snowy winter picture.
Today we have sleet and freezing rain coming down and this artist is ready for winter to end!
Winter Evergreens
We have several inches of snow on the ground and have been having very cold temperatures, which makes it easy to stay in the studio and paint. I’ve been experimenting with winter evergreens, trying out various color combinations and snow-laden clouds.
Does one of these remind you of a special time or place?
Weekly Photo Challenge: Two Subjects
In this watercolor painting for the challenge “Two Subjects,” I have horses and snow.
As a general rule, having two (unrelated) subjects in a painting is like having two stars in a play; they tend to compete with each other for top billing. When deciding what to paint, I usually decide who (or what) is going to be the star and make the other images co-stars, or less emphatic. Then all the elements tend to “play well together.”
