10 Tips for Mastering the Art of Impressionist Snowscapes

14/12/2023

Painting snow scenes in an Impressionist style involves capturing the essence and mood of the scene rather than focusing on detailed representation. Here are ten tips to help you achieve that loose, expressive style in your snow-filled landscapes. Bonus: Watch the full demonstration and download the PDF summary to keep for later.

10 Tips for Painting Snow in a Loose Style:
Before we jump in to the tips, it is important to remember that you will have to practice painting many snow scenes to get comfortable with these techniques. Best practice is to focus on a couple of the tips and try them in your painting. Then add to that in your next painting. This is simpler if you paint small studies. For example my painting below is an A5 size (15cm x 20cm) which is great for learning and building your skills.

Snowy Stream: oil painting by Malcolm Dewey

Snowy Stream (oil) by Malcolm Dewey

Choose a Limited Palette: Use a limited color palette to create harmony in your painting. Cool colors like blues, purples, and grays work well for snow scenes. Introduce warm tones selectively for contrast.
Loose Brushwork: Use loose and bold brushstrokes. Avoid getting caught up in details. Use a larger brush and experiment with expressive strokes to suggest the texture of snow.
Imply Rather Than Define: Instead of meticulously painting every tree or building, imply their presence with suggestive strokes. Allow the viewer's imagination to fill in the details.
Play with Light and Shadow: Capture the unique quality of light on snow. Use varied values to represent shadows and highlights. Pay attention to the way sunlight reflects off the snow, creating interesting patterns. This requires using a variety of brush strokes.
Experiment with Texture: Use palette knives and bristle brushes to create interesting surface textures for snow. Experiment with different techniques by combining these tools in the same painting. This all helps to convey the feeling of a snowy landscape.
Dynamic Composition: Create movement and interest in your composition. Consider diagonal lines, varying heights of elements (like trees or hills), and irregular spacing to add a sense of dynamism.
Capture Atmosphere: Impressionism is about capturing the mood and atmosphere of a scene. Consider the weather conditions, time of day, and overall feeling you want to convey in your snow scene. There must be a clear light effect: bright light, cool overcast, misty and so on.
Work Wet-in-Wet: Allow some of your colors to blend on the canvas by working wet-in-wet. This can create a more spontaneous and atmospheric effect, especially when depicting snowy landscapes.
Use Broken Color Technique: Apply colors in small, separate strokes rather than blending them completely. This technique, known as broken color, adds vibrancy and energy to your painting.
Step Back and Evaluate: Periodically step back from your canvas to evaluate your work from a distance. This can help you see the overall effect and make adjustments to achieve the desired impression.

Remember, the key to Impressionism is capturing the feeling of a scene rather than creating a precise replica. Experiment, have fun, and let your personal style shine through!