Last week Mother Nature gave us two beautiful snow storms that left our Utah neighborhood looking like a winter wonderland. The day of the first storm I had a list of errands to run, but as the snow accumulated I decided to stay home and off the icy roads. I used this time to create my own winter wonderland by painting a winter watercolor scene with splattered acrylic paint.
Our backyard.
The winter watercolor scene I painted and splattered with acrylic paint.
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Supplies:
Watercolors: After taking a watercolor class on Craftsy I now use the Daniel Smith Essentials Set (a limited palette) plus a few favorite colors for most of my watercolor projects, but there are times when its nice to premixed colors like the ones found in the Koi Watercolor set.
Watercolor paper, fluid acrylic paints, glitter, masking tape, ruler, paper towel, round bristle brush (I’ve tried a lot of different brushes and this one works the best.),disposable plastic table cloth or something to protect your work area from paint splatters.
Tape a piece of watercolor paper to a board. Mine is 8×8 inches. Do a blue watercolor wash with the color darker at the top and getting lighter towards the bottom. Watercolor dries light so do it darker than you think. When its dry lightly draw a horizon line and vertical lines where you want trees.
Paint tree shapes using watery mixes of greens, blues, burnt sienna and yellow ochre. Let the colors run together and mix on the paper. Make sure they are different heights and shapes. You don’t want them to look to perfect.
After the trees are dry darken a few of them so they look like they are in front of the other ones. Darken the snow shadow just below the horizon line and let it fade out to white. While it dries get ready to splatter. You can find tips for splattering paint here and easy clean up here. A video of how I splatter my paint is here with some FAQ.
Cover the trees with a piece of paper towel. Using a size 8 round acrylic brush and acrylic craft paint splatter a little yellow ochre and dark brown paint on the snow area to look like weeds or dry grass. Clean your brush well then splatter white paint. Take off the paper towel and splatter more so it looks like the snow covered grass is in front of the trees. Using lots of paint on your round brush with give you long grass like splatters and a few that look like snowflakes.
I added more splatters to look like falling snow using an old toothbrush. Rub the toothbrush in a little white paint. Work it into the tooth brush. With the bristles facing down rub the brush across your index finger. Try a few splatters on a piece of scrap paper. When you are happy with your splatters do it on your painting. If you have too much paint on your toothbrush you will get big gobs of paint instead of little snow flakes. Before the paint drys you can add a few sprinkles of a clear glitter to give your snow a bit of sparkle.
Video and FAQ can be found here.
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In August 2020 I started reading online to my grandchildren, who live hundreds of miles away. A few years and over a thousand books later we are still reading together on FaceTime. I created readaloudgrandma.com to help other grandparents that want to have a rewarding experience reading aloud to children they love!
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