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

Color and Reflected Light

COLOR, it’s everywhere and as long as we can see, we all experience it from the moment we open our eyes. They say that the human eye can detect around ten million hues. When we paint, we all strive to capture a small percentage of it, and often get frustrated in the process. We squeeze out luscious piles of color onto our palette in anticipation of capturing the beauty of a subject with it. Sometimes, we hit the colors on the mark. Other times, we get frustrated as we struggle through a painting when no matter what we do, we can’t seem to find the right mix. And, to make things worse, it’s not just local color, but also reflected color and the temperature of the light that we need to take into account when deciding on a shade. 

Color Choices

So, what is it about color and our color preferences that excite us? Color evokes strong emotional responses in all of us, but not necessarily the same types of responses. Blue may mean calmness and relaxation with visions of the ocean or a beautiful lake to one person, while denoting sadness to another. Depending on our life experiences, our preference for color can be psychological. For example, white might mean pleasantly clean and sterile to some who feel comfortable with a clean antiseptic environment, but cold and icy like a chilly winter day to others. Cultural traditions also influence our preference to color. If you look at color in clothing, for example, you may find that some of the cultures closest to the equator where weather is warmest tend to wear very strong, bright colors, while those in much colder climates tend to wear more subdued neutral colors.

Local and Relative Color

light creates the local color or colors of an object because each object possesses certain chemical properties or qualities that absorb some rays and reflect others How much an object absorbs and reflects determines the color of an object. However, we cannot go by local color alone. As artists, we need to put away our preconceptions about color and look at the relativity of color, i.e., the relationship of color to its surroundings. Changes to color happen when the light source changes, for example, when a sunny day (warm light) turns into a cloudy one (cool light), or when other colors that surround a subject change.

The Influence of Surrounding Colors

A subject’s colors are directly influenced by the color of objects that surround it. This color is possible because of reflected light. Reflected light helps to model form and gives variety to our shadows. A white building may take on the color of the bushes below and around it, because the light from the sky will bounce off of these objects and project on the surrounding objects.

The color of the Wadsworth Mansion in this painting was not pure white, though I’m pretty sure that if you asked the workers who painted the building what color they used, it would be some variation of white, such as titanium. The day that I painted it, the trees and flowering bushes around it projected a warm orange glow upward that originated from the sunlight that was in front of me, slightly to the left and somewhat high in the sky. There was very little direct light on the front of the building.

Reflections and Adjacent Objects

In the still life, the warm yellow of the lemon was reflected onto the cool bluish white surface, and the red skin of the apple and the peel of the orange reflect onto the normally white dish near the fruit as well as onto the fruit adjacent to them. 

Color Relationships

The six color squares are a good demonstration of the influence of surrounding colors. The orange color in the center is exactly the same for all six squares, yet depending on the color that surrounds the orange, the orange square appears to be a different shade. Note also that the stronger the color that surrounds the orange, the more it influences the perception of the orange hue. 

This is one example of how color values can draw attention to an object or provide a more subtle color shift. One color can become darker, lighter, warmer or cooler in relation to another color. When painting, try to relate and compare all of the colors in your composition to one another. Ask yourself, Is one color lighter or darker than the other? Is one color warmer or cooler than the other?

Next

I’m going to share my moleskin and small sketchbook sketches of people and places that I do for fun and practice. I'll talk about the types of media that I use when doing quick sketches.

Winter in New Haven

I painted this scene just after our first large storm of the year. The snowy scene is on Chapel Street in New Haven, near the bus stop shelters. The reflection of the snow and surrounding area in the glass was interesting. The glass looked like really old style glass and the structures are rather elaborate for shelters. I think that the window designs were a throwback to the early 1900s. In the distance, the buildings of downtown New Haven peek through the trees.   There were people at the park that day playing with their dogs in the snow. I added this person with a dog because I felt like some activity was a good addition to this view and reflected the activities of the area that day.

"Chapel Street Winter Walk"  12"x14" Oil on Canvas over Panel.

Winter at Bauer Farm

This is a painting that I did at Bauer Farm in Madison, CT. I love this covered bridge that spans a short walk over two adjoining ponds. The water was iced over and the snow was just beginning to recede. I dressed up warmly and managed to catch the afternoon light with only two hours to work.
Title: "Covered Bridge, Winter, Bauer Farm" 12" x 14"  Oil on canvas over panel.

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.