Snowy Winter Landscape in Watercolor ❄️🐑 | Easy Painting Tutorial, by Nasim art on YouTube. 8 min 5 s.
- Video length
- 8 min 5 s
- Time to do it
- 45 minutes
- Difficulty
- Medium
- Steps
- 10
What you need
Steps
Tape your paper to a flat board so it stays flat while it dries. Lightly sketch a horizon line about two thirds up the page, then mark where the fence and sheep will sit.
Wet the whole sky area with clean water using the size 12 brush. Drop in indigo and cobalt blue, tilting the board so the colors blend on their own.
While the sky is still damp, paint a soft line of distant trees with pale blue-gray. Leave plenty of dry white paper showing through for snow.
Let the sky dry, then wash the ground with very diluted cool blue and gray. Keep the foreground slightly darker than the distance so the scene gains depth.
Paint the rustic fence with sepia and light brown using the size 6 brush. Vary the strength of each post so some sit forward and some fade back.
Add the sheep with loose strokes of the small round brush. Paint a soft gray-blue body shape, then a dark sepia head and two short legs. Keep the edges rough.
Warm the scene by touching a little orange or light brown into the fence and near the sheep. The warm tones sit against the cool blues and stop the painting looking cold and flat.
Deepen the darkest values in the foreground with indigo and sepia, and keep the background soft. Stronger darks at the front pull the eye into the picture.
Load the liner brush 000 with white gouache and add small snow highlights on the fence tops, sheep backs and ground. Work with a light touch.
Let everything dry completely, then peel the tape off slowly at a low angle so the paper does not tear.
Tips and common mistakes
Leave bare paper for snow instead of painting white over gray, since gouache is only for small highlights.
Stop touching a wet sky wash once the color is down, or it turns muddy and patchy.
Test each mixed color on a scrap of the same paper before you put it on the painting.
Keep the distant trees paler and blurrier than the foreground fence to build depth.
Questions
Do I need rough watercolor paper for this painting?
Rough 300 gsm paper helps a lot because the texture catches pigment and gives snowy, grainy edges. Cold press paper works too, but the washes will look smoother.
Can I skip the white gouache?
Yes. Most of the snow comes from untouched white paper, so the gouache is only for small sparkle on the fence and sheep. Without it the painting still works.
How long should I wait between layers?
Wait until a wash looks matte rather than shiny, which is usually a few minutes. A hairdryer on the cool setting speeds this up if you are impatient.
This guide was drafted from the video's details and general task knowledge. It has not been checked against the full video. Check the video and relevant product instructions before following a procedure. Report a correction.
