Good afternoon Steemit! I have a Christmas-themed watercolour for you this time. This was my first attempt at painting snow and it was super hard. I used this painting as a reference image to try and work out how to capture snow on the page. I'm moderately happy with the results.. definitely a lot of room for improvement.
I first sketched out the outlines of the basic shapes. I generally use a 3H or 4H pencil for this so that the lines are really light and aren't visible later on. I briefly contemplated sketching out where all the shadows should be on the trees, but instead decided to just wing it. I then painted over the smaller tree next to the house with masking fluid, so that it was kept white when I added the sky wash.
Next I added some indigo and intense blue for the sky and river. I used a bit of salt on the river to give an icy effect, and I think this worked better than it has in the past. I then used a mix of green and indigo for the bits of the tree that are poking through the snow. I then removed the masking fluid that was covering the tree next to the house. At this stage, I was really unhappy with how this was shaping up. It looks awful -.-
I forgot to take photos for a while because I was struggling with it so much! I used indigo and payne's grey to add shadows on the Christmas trees and in the surrounding snow. I was pleased with the snow shadows on the roof of the little house, but was less enthusiastic about how it was looking on the trees overall. I painted the house red and waited for everything to dry. I was just about ready to give up on it at this stage, but once it was dry I started adding deeper shadows in black ink, with a Faber-Castell brush pen.
Somehow this managed to save it! I added detail around the house,and inked in the tree to the left of the house, making sure to leave white space above the branches to illustrate snow on the branches. Adding in darker shadows on the main Christmas trees made them seem much more realistic than they did before. I also added in a bridge and some foreground trees.
As a finishing touch, I then added some falling snow using white ink, by splattering it with an old toothbrush.
I thought I was done here, but when I showed it to my wife she lamented the lack of baubles on the tree, and thought the little house needed to look more inviting. So I added some warm, yellow light coming from the windows and lighting up the surrounding snow and tree. Finally, I added some red and yellow reflective baubles to the largest tree. Much better!
I will be posting more watercolours every week, so be sure to follow if you'd like to see more. I'd love to connect with the artist community on Steemit, so please comment below if you'd like to chat, or can point me towards any resources or good people/groups to follow. I also write posts on cosmology, virtual reality, consciousness and philosophy, if that floats your boat. You can also find me at:
Twitter - @ongoingwow
Medium - @ongoingwow
Instagram - @ongoingwow
