Speaking of Art Blog

Winter Friends, pastel, 14x11"

I recently finished painting this pastel of two little birds, a junco and an American tree sparrow, weathering the cold and snow together, atop two rusty old posts surrounded by chicken wire.  I love the homeliness of the whole scene.  Juncos and sparrows are two birds that are often overlooked, but I think that’s what gives this scene so much down-to-earth charm. 

As I picked out my paper for this painting I suddenly realized that I have never rendered a whole bunch of falling snow before…..ever.  Yes, I’ve painted snow in the past, but not while it’s falling.  Here are some scenes with snow that I’ve painted. 

Then I was reminded of the time I rendered exactly 17 falling snowflakes in a painting I did of a female cardinal, but 17 barely counts as a lot of falling snow.  No, this painting would be a new adventure in how to depict a bunch of realistic falling snow.

Sweet Winter Visitor, pastel, 20x8"

I decided to help my cause along by starting with white PastelMat for my surface.  That way, if any paper showed through at the end, it would automatically be snow.  Then I really studied each individual snowflake in my reference photo.  What I found was that every single snowflake was different.  There were no two alike.  Some were tiny dots, some were streaks looking almost like thick rain, while others were misshapen blurry circles, and still others were blobs, white blobs.  And each of them, every last snowflake, was seemingly placed in a random orientation in space.  They weren’t all facing slanted or downward, but every which way.  If there’s a strong wind, then of course all the snowflakes will be slanted the same way, but that wasn’t the case in my reference photo.  The flakes were lighter than air and falling downward every which way.  They also weren’t evenly spaced apart.  Some were very close together while others were pretty far apart.  Random, everything about them was random.  Lastly they weren’t bright white.  They were more off-white, sort of a dirty white color.

So after I placed the cold looking, blurry, gray/blue/violet sky on the paper, I started to randomly make marks here and there with a light putty colored super soft pastel.  Sometimes I’d draw little circles that I’d then blur and smear and smudge in with a finger.  Other places I’d make a streaking mark or a misshapen blob, and still others were just a dot.  I also paid attention to my placement of the snowflakes atop objects like the birds themselves, the posts, and the chicken wire.  Because we humans are always looking for patterns in everything, I found that I wanted to carefully place the snowflakes that were in front of the wire to be the same distance away from the edges of each hexagon.  But I fought that urge because that’s not random.  Random means NO PATTERN, NONE.  So sometimes I’d purposely tap a snowflake into place right near a wire hexagon’s edge so that it was touching the wire.  And I tried not to put a snowflake right smack in the middle of any one wire hexagon.  That would have been too obviously intentional, too patterned.  Even on top of the two birds, I tried to add snowflakes that looked random but also didn’t detract from each bird’s distinctive qualities.  In other words, I veered away from their faces and beaks, but the rest of their bodies were fair game.  If I had avoided putting snowflakes on the birds altogether, that would have, again, been too obvious.  What about the lighter part of each rusty post?  Yep, didn’t want to forget them.  Even though the snowflakes didn’t show up as well because of the lightness of the posts’ color, I still needed to add some snowflakes there to continue the overall realistic effect.

Each time I’d finish rendering a section of snowflakes I’d step back and evaluate.  I’d ask myself, “Are there enough snowflakes?  Are they randomly placed apart?  Is there enough of a variety of shapes and sizes of snowflakes?”  All of those elements were important.  Oh, and the snowflakes were always the last thing I’d add to each section of the painting, the final touch. 

I found that it was really fun to add the falling snow.  Those tiny little flakes made the whole scene come alive with light and activity and movement.  They made the cold sky look much more inviting alongside those two little birds.  They were the finishing touch that added life to an otherwise cold and dreary scene.  Mission accomplished.  Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.