Beginners painting - How to paint snow

Snow is rarely white!


Over the last week, I have uploaded a tutorial to YouTube talking about how to paint snow. I have expanded on this with a more in depth step by step course on Skillshare. 

Artists of all levels often encounter difficulties when our brain overrides our eyes. When we learn to trust our eyes and don't allow our brain to "fill in the dots", drawing and painting becomes much easier. However we do need to constantly remind ourselves!

In the case of snow, we have lived all our lives with the assumption that "snow is white". Of course snow is white under perfect conditions, however in reality it can appear to be many colours. The snow will be affected by the light source, cast shadows, reflections of surrounding objects and the sky.

If you look carefully at the photographs below, you can see that there are many different colours in the snowy areas. Before beginning your painting, look carefully and makes notes of the colours that your eyes see!

The YouTube tutorial is linked below.

Snow appearing as lilac, reflecting the colours of the Sunset.

Shadows appear as a grey blue, varying in tone.

The snow is almost black in the foreground shadows.

Very few areas are truly white.







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