CHAPTER EIGHTEEN -- SNOW

Rio Snow, 12" x 9"

Snow settles over the land with a shimmer and weight that blurs and softens the shapes of everything it covers. Its startling whiteness shifts the values of the landscape painting, forcing the artist to paint the ground, rather than the sky, as the lightest plane in the picture, and to structure the painting carefully to achieve a clean, bold whiteness. Although many think snow a simple subject to paint, it presents special challenges to pastelists because of the medium’s inherent tendency to blend on the paper when applied in layers and the fact that colors that are not crisply applied and left untouched can become muddy looking. Avoiding these pitfalls takes forethought and planning, as well as knowledge in handling the medium.

The first hazard the artist encounters in painting snow is that of value shift. It seems simple enough: In a snow painting the land becomes the lightest plane, the sky is medium-light and the trees are dark. But does the fact that the land plane becomes lightest perhaps force the sky to become a medium value? No! The sky is still the same light value it has always been, but the ground is often lighter in value when covered with a fresh blanket of snow. Value relationships are the key. Another casualty of the shift in values is often the colors in the snow. It’s very easy to see the snow scene as overly black and white, neglecting the chance for surprising color, as well as simplifying the value range far too much. This can result in unrealistically strong contrast, which omits medium-dark and medium-light values entirely.

Mountain Snow, 8" x 11"

Photographic prints, especially those taken by amateur photographers, often validate oversimplification and lead the student artist astray. Because cameras average the light coming into the lens, in all but the most expert of hands a print will be overly dark in dark areas or overly light in light areas. All detail and nuance of color is lost in the shadows or washed away by the light. Spend time observing the values and colors of snow without relying on a photograph to portray it for you. As you step outside on a cold, snowy day you might first notice the whiteness of the snow, and then perhaps the color of the sky. Spend time looking for the subtleties of color in the snow. Generally you will see warm colors in the sunlight and cool colors in shadows. When the light is one color the shadows are usually the opposite, but the color depends on many variables. Remember aerial perspective holds true. Distance flavors all colors, strewing the light around the landscape so that colors become lighter in value and cooler in color as they recede from the viewer in all instances -- except that of white. As white recedes it becomes slightly darker and duller. It remains its whitest in the near foreground.

Sunlit Snow, 12" x 12" (underdrawing, charcoal)

Shadows on snow will shift with distance, generally from greenish-blue in the fore to lavender-blue in the middle ground to pure blue in the distance, as the air progressively filters out yellow and red. Shadow colors on snow often depend on the color of the sky. Look for a shadow crossing new-fallen snow. See how the sky color is captured there, dark beneath its source and lightening slightly with distance. Snow is extremely reflective. Because it’s light in color (literally containing all colors in white light), snow reflects a greater percentage of light. Consider a snow-covered hillside that forms a soft bowl at its foot. Depending on which way it faces, the shadowed face may contain subtly different colors because the sky reflected in it will vary slightly. The sky is somewhat darker at the zenith and paler at the horizon, as well as slightly warmer in the quadrant near the sun and cooler away from the sun. This means that the colors in shadows on snow may be some permutation of warm or cool, very pale or somewhat darker, and range in color from blue-green to lavender to pure blue depending on the distance from the viewer. This allows for exciting color possibilities in both sunlight and shadows on snow. Reflections in snow can also be found in more intimate surroundings. Look for the color of a wall or fence reflected against the snow bank beneath it. Bounce colors from nearby objects into the shadows, thereby creating particularly beautiful temperature changes. A reflection can season the color of the shadow nearby, causing another dimension of color in the snow. Layering colors creates subtle variations, particularly in deep shadow areas. Even the darkest shadows in snow are fairly light in value.

After a heavy snowfall, the outlines of objects become muffled and soft, blanketed with a thick, velvety whiteness that blunts hard edges. The barn becomes a giant pillow pointing its corner skyward, the car a marshmallow shape in the hollow of the driveway. Trees become weighed down by the wetness of the snow. Look for the way the branches are pushed down until the snow atop them becomes part of the bank beneath. Don’t miss the heaviness of snow. Also, find places where the rich, dark soil punctuates the snow as it begins to melt, forming deep pools around plants and grasses. Concentrate on these edges, which are crisp where they touch the ground but remain rounded above. Be especially careful in places where dark colors reside in front of light ones, and must therefore be painted dark over light. It’s best not to overwork these spots, which is bound to cause muddy-looking patches. Plan your painting carefully so that you can use one deliberate stroke of color, then stop while it’s fresh.

A snow drift is an exercise in hard and soft, sharp edges and blended slopes. Find the direction of the sun and the defining shadow. Without any shadow, drifts are seen as subtle variations of warm and cool. Look for the crisp line along the top edge and the soft slide of snow, like a mountain in miniature. See how you can define this slope using colors that are layered and softly blended together to create the shadow side, adding a line of light color where the sun blazes. If there is a cornice where the snow has blown over the top and frozen in place or a cast shadow crossing the drift, you have an added chance to define the shape of the drift with color, blending and edges.

Winter Sun and Shadows, 12" x 18"

Although there are generalizations that can assist you in painting snow, hard and fast rules need to be suspended. The reflective brightness of snow changes everything. So be adventurous, try new colors, layers and new techniques. Painting snow with pastels is a very satisfying experience. Snow is light in color and value, the strongest range of colors available in the medium. Pastelists therefore have virtually endless choices of colors to use. Snow’s rounded softness is easily captured by lightly blending colors to show the swish and slide of shadows. The reflective qualities of pastel mimic the sparkle and shine of snow with ease. All in all, pastel is well suited to painting snow.

FALLING SNOW

There are different techniques you can use to paint falling snowflakes, but it’s best to paint the entire image before adding any falling flakes. Choose a subject with muted light since snow falls from clouds that obscure the light. It’s not necessary to have a photograph of snow falling on the scene you’re painting since photos are hard to capture, but study such photos for evidence of how to make snow look realistic.

For instance, there will not be any strong shadows in the photo, nor will there be strong dark and light contrasts. Paint the softly muted colors that come from low ambient light. Use a palette of subdued light to medium-light colors, with an occasional dark to punctuate the painting. Remember that in a high-key painting with low contrast darks become very strong punctuation. Carefully place these darks to draw the eye. Because the light is low, your lightest colors will not be strongly white in color, so reserve the use of white for the end, assuring yourself that you’ll have lights to use if needed. Many paintings of falling snow will have no pure white in them at all. Put your white aside for the majority of the painting.

Notice how falling snow looks in a photograph. There are near and far flakes seen in varying degrees of light colors, the nearer ones bigger and brighter. The pattern of flakes is random and swirling, not evenly spaced like wallpaper. The flakes may look light against darker areas and sometimes darker against the whiter areas -- but not always. At times the light flakes simply disappear against the lightest areas of the painting. You don’t have to show every flake. Less is often more!

To make the final falling flakes choose several colors in various light and medium-light shades. Begin by dotting in a few key spots to draw the eye, adding colors judiciously. Notice the angle at which the flakes are falling. Sometimes the wind whips them into swirls, although there’s usually a prevailing direction. Stop after each layer of dots, making sure to vary the sizes and colors to create the illusion of depth. Do not allow all of the dots to be uniform in shape. Fat flakes may be oddly lumpy. Small flakes may appear as short dashes. If you make the mistake of painting every falling flake as a dash of the same length and color it will end up looking like pouring rain. Take care to see how the pattern of flakes draws the eye -- and remember, it’s easier to put a few more in than take them out! If you make a mistake and feel the falling flakes must be changed, you’ll be forced to wipe out quite a bit of your painting.

You may try using white spray paint to make snow. Carefully drift the spray over your finished painting. Be cautious, however, as once it’s there any changes you try to make will be obvious and usually unsuccessful. Perhaps a more effective means to make incidental snowflakes is to use a razor blade to shave off bits of pale-colored pastel onto the surface of your finished painting, laid flat on a tabletop. A second pass can be done with a very light drift of pure white pastel to simulate the nearest and brightest snowflakes. When the results please you, place a piece of clean newsprint over the top of the finished painting and briskly rub the flat of your hand over it to burnish the bits into the paper.

Cold Blue, 9" x 12"

Last Snow, 9" x 12"

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO -- WHITE DONE RIGHT

Frosty Glow, 9" x 12" 

(With thanks to The Pastel Journal where this was originally published, with additional material included here.)

The painting looks washed out, as though someone poured bleach over it and left it in the sun too long. All the colors appear faded, like jeans after years of wear or an old flag left to disintegrate, a vague suggestion of once-bright colors. The overall effect is dull and flat. Chalkiness is a problem that can crop up in any medium, but is often found in pastel paintings, partly because of the abundance of pale colors that are available. The whitish, wishy-washy colors of a chalky painting suggest a lack of control over value, contrast and color.

A high-key painting need not be bland and characterless. Instead it can celebrate the light by maintaining control of tones, using a range of values and the right contrasts for the subject. Although the darkest dark may only be a medium value in the final painting it must nevertheless present a selection of values leading to the lightest light.

One way to defeat chalky color syndrome is to try two different challenges: First, paint an all-white subject using no actual white pastel. Second, paint a very high-key subject in which a medium value functions as the darkest dark. Each of these exercises will strengthen your understanding of how to control values while using colors. Value is the element that describes the shapes of objects and is the underlying abstraction of all painting, so increased awareness of value improves composition as well as color.

WHITE WITHOUT WHITE

Begin with an all-white subject, which may reside inside the composition, such as a white cloud or whitewater rapids, and work to create interesting colors hung on a sound tonal structure while maintaining a sense of whiteness. Because of the temptation to pick up pure, bright white, remove it from your palette and put it where you cannot see it. Good planning must lie behind your painting, in which you first create an arrangement of interesting values and shapes. In this challenge you need not limit the values. In fact, it’s best to design a strong tonal contrast of dark darks and an excellent range of middle values to use against the light colors to achieve the impression of whiteness. Don’t use bright white paper, which will simply allow you to replace the missing white with the color of the ground. Instead, choose a light value tone in a pleasing color to set the mood of the painting and establish its overall paleness. Do not allow the white subject to become simply black and white. Utilize colors to arrive at the proper tones. Many times an over-reliance on high contrast alone results in a chalky painting. Instead, a range of strong middle values accomplished via color will make an interesting all-white subject.

Cold River Runoff, 9" x 17"

How much color can you put into white? One of the most interesting aspects of white is that it’s made up of all colors in the light spectrum. Overlapping red, blue and green spotlights can make white light on a stage, as long as the colors are equally balanced. For the artist, this means white may be flavored with any color found in nature. Consider the color cast that varying light sources give to objects. Our sun is a yellow star and gives warmth to all colors seen in daylight. In shade, the blue of the sky influences all colors, so whites seen in daylight can generally be thought of as warm yellow in the sun and cool blue in shade. However, there are varying kinds of daylight. On an overcast day the light is often cool in color, having been filtered through clouds, while at sunrise or sunset the light is strikingly warm in color. Whites seen under these conditions can be darker shades of blue and green or warm, bright tones of red and orange. Moonlight, because it is so pale, bleeds all color from a scene, leaving ghostly grays in place of whites. Firelight and candlelight make white into hot red and orange. You’re free to select from an endless array of light colors because of the fact that white contains all colors.

One particularly important tool to have on hand is a value finder. While there are many varieties, essentially this is a card printed with a scale of grays from black to white, each of which is pierced with an opening. This allows you to hold the card above a color, squint until your eye is almost closed and see where that particular color blends into its value of gray. For instance, you can hold the card above a photograph of clouds and perceive the lightest lights in the white of the billows, as well as the paler grays of the blue of the sky. There is no standard number assigned to values on the value finder. The number 10 does not always represent white. In fact, 10 might easily be called black, so disregard the actual number but understand that there is a scale of dark to light.

White is by definition the lightest value in the palette. To paint white subject matter you must first realize that no other color can possibly approach white in lightness. Therefore the challenge is to build near-whites into the painting, using far more colors in the light range of your palette. Hold the value finder above the lightest values in your photograph or painting, noting that only white registers as the lightest light. Now find colors that are slightly -- very slightly -- darker than white. This may be only a pale pearl gray value. If your palette of colors is not strong in this light range, consider purchasing very pale blues, greens, yellows, peaches, pinks, lavenders and grays that you can use when very light values are needed. However, do not rely on light colors alone to make an effective painting of a white subject. You must structure a strong range of all values into the painting, and these too must be made using colors. Particularly important to the success of the white subject is the use of interesting middle tones, where the strongest color often resides. The strongest darks will also benefit from the use of colors.

To check the values of your colors change a photograph to grayscale on your computer. This will allow you to clearly see how the colors translate into values. Check to make sure that your subject appears to be white in the grayscale version and that you have the proper array of values.

MIDDLE VALUE AS DARK

For another challenge, paint a subject that’s structured using mostly lighter values, such as a very sunny landscape. This is commonly referred to as a high-key painting. Use your value finder to establish the darkest dark in your painting as a medium or medium-dark value. High-key compositions must have an interesting variety of values between the lightest light and the darkest dark to avoid overly pale chalkiness, even if the darkest color is medium in value. Rather than relying on high contrasts of light and dark, look instead to color relationships. This will necessitate concentrated contrasts in color rather than a reliance on value alone. However, no painting can possibly divorce itself entirely from the issue of value, which is a basic property of color.

Fog, 12" x 9"

You’ll need to select a value for your ground. Beginning with a middle value establishes the darkest tone for the entire painting. The test is to rely on medium values as the darkest darks in a painting of a light subject. It helps to create a careful study or underdrawing to establish a range of values from medium to light. In this painting you are allowed to use white for the palest value, however, after your experiments painting all-white-with-no-white you most likely will find that white seems somewhat dead, giving a ghostly chalkiness to the piece. The idea here is to use vibrant colors that bounce and play together, achieving an overall high-key value structure that’s nonetheless colorful. The effect may be one of intense heat, giving the impression of a hot summer day or powerful sunlight warming everything in the scene, even when predominantly cool colors are used, or may result in the cool, pale effect of fog or early morning light. Confirm your limited value range by laying your value finder down alongside the painting, or put a strong dark line next to the image against which you can check your colors so that you can more easily identify darks that are becoming too deep for the limited range you’ve established. Step back frequently to see that the intensity of colors you’re using approximates the light on the subject.

CONTROL

As you conduct each of these exercises your control over value will increase, as will your understanding of how to use colorful lights. You will begin to see the color of light in all its many hues, and realize that pale color does not mean lack of color. Chalky paintings with an insipid, dull look will soon give way to lyrical colors in pale values that vibrate together in a well-planned structure of values.

Sanctuary, 12" x 9"