Snow: Winter’s Whipped Cream

I love to paint snow scenes. Snow makes an otherwise monotonous winter landscape come alive. To me, there’s nothing more beautiful than a snow-covered bank on a meandering stream on a bright sunny day. It’s like putting whipped cream on an otherwise ordinary piece of pie!

Now don’t get me wrong, going out and painting plein air in frigid conditions is not exactly fun, but I’ve learned to gear up properly and I don’t waste any time when I’m out standing in snow and ice in thirty-degree weather. I usually prep my canvas and lay out my palette with paint in the comfort of my warm home.

A Bend in the River

Gearing Up

For clothing, I bring my blizzard boots, the tall ones with two-inch soles that look like hand-me-downs from Frankenstein. I also wear long johns under my sweat pants and my long, quilted paint-stained hooded coat and hat. My only concession is that I’m limited on how warm I can keep my hands, so even with thin cotton gloves covered by nylon gloves, they do go numb after a while. I figure it’s an incentive to work fast and have a good plan. I do a value drawing, take photos, and then work quickly, laying in the darks and large shapes first, making sure I get the most exciting parts of the scene. I usually spend from two and a half to three hours capturing the highlights and engraving the picture in my memory, then I beat feet to the heat and finish it in my studio.

Tips for Painting Snow

Here are a few things to consider when painting snow scenes:

Shadows

The shadows and texture of snow can change depending on the weather conditions and time of day. A cloudy day can create a creamy, orangey hue, while a bright sunny day can give off cool blue hues.

Shadows in the snow will have more light within them than typical shadows. Notice how light reflects on tiny peaks and drifts and how foreground shadows can appear very, very blue. You will almost never see pure white in a snowy landscape, but a wide range of different hues and values.

Snow Blanked Field

Surroundings

Keep in mind that snow will absorb or reflect the colors surrounding it. For instance, the shadows in snow will often reflect what it happening in the sky.

The Sky

Large areas of snow will reflect the sky if there is nothing else around.

• If the sky is bright blue, your snow should be a more subdued reflection of that hue.
• If the sky is gray with clouds, your largest areas of snow will be gray.
• If it is dusk, your snow may appear pink and purple in reflection of the fading winter sunset.

Winter Marsh at Town Field

Distance

White tends to appear warmer as it recedes, so incorporate yellows and pinks into your snow as it travels into the distances towards the horizon.

Return to purple and blue shadows in the farthest distance.

In the foreground, the closer whites will require blue hues. The middle ground in a snowy landscape tends to have a purplish hue; shadows also tend to appear blueish and purple.

Brightening Whites

Use a tiny dot of Cadmium Orange to make the snow appear whiter. A very tiny dot. Small specks of orange, placed in the right area or areas can really make the white pop. Using orange tints in your trees or other plants, as well as dark blue accents, can also make the snow look whiter relative to those hues.

“A color will frequently generate its own complement. In the winter, if there is a greenish sky, the snow will look pink and its shadows will appear blue-green.”                       - Emile A Gruppé

Aerial Perspective in Landscapes

Aerial perspective or atmospheric perspective refers to the effect the atmosphere has on the appearance of an object as it is viewed from a distance, the appearance being its color and value.

In my last post, I talked about the curtains of water particles that inhabit the atmosphere and how these curtains change the color of the sky as it approaches the horizon. The same effect holds true for landscape subjects in the distance. As colors recede from the eye over terrain, they become cooler, with the exception of white. A cooler color means a color that tends to contain blue, while a warm color is made up of reds and yellows. In this picture, the trees in the distance appear cooler in color and change to blue in the far distance.

Color Changes

The greater the distance and the more atmosphere, the bluer the distant objects become. As your eye travels, you will notice that the color yellow disappears first, including all of the yellows that mix with other colors such as yellow green, browns, and oranges.

A warm yellow green in the foreground will transition to an emerald green and then a cool blue-green.

In this picture, the closest greens contain more yellow, and as we look further, the yellows dissipate, until the greens in the distance become a blue-green. The sky at the horizon is also lighter and changes to a gray-rose in color.

Reds will prevail slightly longer than yellow, before they too succumb to blue. That’s why mountains tend toward a warm purple before they change in their farthest distance to blue. Atmospheric particles affect the value of a color as well as the temperature in a landscape. You can see in this photo of a mountain range, the transition from green to blue-green, to purple-blue to blue.

Value Changes

All colors will become lighter as they recede, the lightness tempered by the prevailing sky color. As I said last week, whites tend to become slightly warmer and darker as they recede, due to the atmosphere.

 As you would expect, objects close by are deeper in color, their shapes are sharper and the values are more distinct.

It’s important to note that a flat ground plane is always going to be darker than the sky (except when snow is involved), but never as dark as the upright planes such as trees and buildings.

Workshop Everything but White Snow

I ran a workshop for seven students at Artsplace in Cheshire last Saturday. The name of the workshop was Everything But White Snow. I had students of all ages and all levels attending. Some of them had never painted with oils. We copied one of my paintings, Snow Blanketed Field.

The  painting was of a farm field that I painted from my living room window one winter. It was early morning so the shadows were long and very distinctive. The colors in the snow were several shades of blue, pink, yellow, orange, and purple. 

Normally, I coat the canvas with a wash of color, in this case a yellow or orangey yellow. I found that the Turpenoid did not dry as quickly as mineral spirits. This caused the paint to bleed into the top paint and produce a greenish tint. I didn't realize this at first and it was too late to do anything about it. Mineral spirits do not do this. 

Just the same, the paintings turned out great. First, I had the class do a pencil drawing to show where the darks and lights are, and to get them used to drawing the shapes. Then, I walked the class through a dark to light process. I find when I teach that students do not want to do a drawing at all. Many have a hard time getting the drawing correct. Usually, this means that the painting result is disappointing. I try to emphasize that the drawing is the most important part of the process. Understanding how the eye flows through a picture, deciding and positioning the focal point, and figuring out the values is so important. Drawing it all out helps to get the vision in your head before you pick up the brush.

I love to watch as the students move from one area to another in the process. It's easy to tell those who are used to mixing colors. Gaining knowledge of color mixing takes time and a lot of practice. Studying the color wheel and doing color charts helps, though it's not as exciting as diving into the paint and attempting to match colors on the canvas. I have done the whole gamut of mixing colors for color charts using Richard Schmid's techniques described in his first Alla Prima book.  I confess that I don't pull out the charts as often as I should, but every now and then I do look at them. I highly recommend doing the color charts.

 

The students nearly finished their paintings, and seemed rather pleased with the results. I think some of them will continue to work with oil paint. I had fun teaching the class. They were all very excited to see what they could do. I was pleased to see how well they did. 

Market at Artsplace and Upcoming Workshops

I had a booth at Artsplace in Cheshire, Ct over the weekend. I sold a lot of calendars and cards. It was fun to do. I met quite a few artists that teach at the center. Artsplace is a place where you can learn all types of painting and crafts at a very reasonable price. The town supports Artsplace, which reduces the fees and enables them to provide all materials free with the cost of the class.

I will be teaching two workshops at Artsplace this winter. One, called Every Color But White Snow, is going to cover how to paint the nuances of snow using oil paint. I'll be using one of my winter scenes as a guide. This class takes place on January 26.

The other class is called Tea Cup and Pastry in Oils. I'll walk you through painting  a small still life of a China cup with a pastry on the side. This workshop will take place on March 2.

Sign up on the Artsplace website.

Hockey Game

I set out to paint at a favorite spot hoping to catch a good snow scene. There's a really nice pond near where I live and I thought that the icy surface and the snow scenery around it would make a good picture. When I arrived, several young teenage boys were clearing the ice and getting ready for a fun neighborhood hockey game. I decided to set up and paint them. They were very nice about it and were quite curious about what I was doing. How lucky I was to have such a interesting diversion from my normal everyday landscapes. The players' clothes added a punch of bright warm color to the blues and purples of the winter snow. I am finding that I enjoy adding people to some of my paintings. I feel like they add life and enhance the surroundings.

Log Cabin in Winter

This is a plein air painting that I did from my bathroom window, looking out over the right of way to the log cabin home next door. It had just snowed that morning, so the snow was still fresh and bright. The sun was out and the birds were looking for food and enjoying the fair weather. It was chilly and a fire was going in the chimney. The far hills still had a frosting of snow near the skyline.

Oil on Canvas, 24" x 30", $900.
To purchase, go to my Website, www.pattymegliostudio.com