Sun & Snow

Three O'clock Shadow Dance, pastel, 8x10

December Light, oil, 10x8

In my previous set of classes at my studio last month, we focused on snow in cloudy, low light conditions. I did two separate blog posts on this: one for pastel and one for oil. I've combined them here this time. In this month's classes, we turned up the sunlight and studied the effects of strong light on snow.

I happen to like the color and lighting effects of both cloudy and sunny conditions on snow. The subtle greys that subdued light conditions create are gorgeous in the winter landscape. But with strong, direct sunlight, you get those luscious deep blues and purples in the snow shadows. With this stronger light, you also have higher contrast in the snow and more vibrancy in the shadows. And the use of cools and warms placed together in the sunlit areas creates that reflective, sunlit quality of the snow.

In my pastel demo, "Three O'clock Show Dance," I used a very warm underpainting which I allowed to show through quite a bit in order to capture the warm/cool color vibration.

In my oil demo, "December Light," I placed strokes of warms and cools next to each other in the snow and on the sunlit birch trees.

Below are a couple of progression shots of each...