Paint a Winter Scene With Oil Paints
Winter scenes have been the subject of countless oil paintings through the centuries. The challenge of capturing the serenity often found in a winter scene is a challenge that makes this subject so popular. Even if you're new to oil painting and your artistic skills are limited, you can create a winter scene in oil paints using just a few colors and simple brush strokes.
Instructions
1. Mix white and gray oil paints together on your canvas. Keep the ratio of gray to white slim. You're adding the gray to help lift the white away from the canvas and remove the starkness. Keeping the overall white color is important.
2. Apply the background of the image first. Paint the white/gray mixture onto the canvas with wide, sweeping strokes of the brush to create the snowy ground and drifts. Move your brush across the canvas from left to right, creating arcs and overlapping them until you have the ground complete.
3. Add dark blue to some of the white and gray paint to create an effective wintry tone for the sky. Don't overdo it with the blue unless you're going for a darker sky. Paint the sky using the same sweeping strokes you applied to the snowy ground, bringing the sky all the way down to where the ground begins.
4. Clean your brush, then pick up a little of the white/gray mixture and dab your canvas with the tip of the brush to place snowflakes in the sky. You can add as many or few snowflakes as you prefer, depending on the degree you want the snow to fall in your scene.
5. Place a little dark brown paint on your palette, then pick up a good portion with your brush and paint a cabin in the lower right of your scene. The cabin doesn't have to be complex. Use geometric shapes. Start at the top edge of your snowy landscape, a few inches from the edge of your canvas, and paint a brown line up to reach the height you want for your cabin, then begin a 45-degree angle stroke to form the roof. Finish the front of the cabin with another line closer to the edge of your canvas and the same height as your first painted line. Paint a flat line from your angled line to finish the roof of your cabin.
6. Paint your cabin brown. Leave one or two small squares for windows. Clean your brush, then add little strokes of black paint intermittently to bring out a texture in the wood of your cabin. Paint one thin vertical and horizontal line in your window to give it a simple frame.
7. Paint a couple of barren trees in your scene. Use wide brush strokes to paint the trunks, clean your brush, then add thin, crooked lines for branches.
