I am a landscape painter juxtaposing color in pastel to create the illusion of light.

2/09/2021 

When painting sun and snow during the coldest months of the year in Indiana, I often reference some of my favorite artists to see how they handled the idea of snow. Shadowed snow is one of the hardest things to paint, we all have a tendency to make it too light and then we wonder why it doesn’t work.

One of the problems is that our brains think of snow as white and can’t image it being dark. I try instead to think of snow as what value is it compared to other objects in the landscape.

Rockwell Kent “Afternoon on the Sea, Monhegan, 1907”

This painting is a perfect example of the value of shadowed snow.

Here it is in black and white, the value of the snow in shadow is a value 4 or 5 on the value scale. That’s pretty dark! Who would have thought to go that low to get the look of shadowed snow.

We can use this knowledge learned from a master, to paint shadowed snow. Referencing other artists of the past who has work that has stood up to the test of time is very beneficial to any artist, especially in this time of instant knowledge. We are extremely lucky to live in the era that we do, we have instant access to almost any information. Of course seeing the work and copying from the masters is  always better in real life  but for most of us this is the next best alternative.

The Blues of Winter 12x16 pastel on UART 320 grit

This painting is a perfect example of learning the value of shadowed snow. Rockwell Kent as well as other master artists were a great help in figuring out snow shadows.