STARRY NIGHT
Watercolor - 11x15
Painting snow with watercolor can be a challenge because you need to use the white of the paper instead of paint. Watercolors are a transparent paint which give a luminous glow to the final piece and any white paint by nature is chalky and opaque and will dull that glow.
The first step was to mask out areas of snow on the treees, the roof line of the buildings and spatter some in the sky for stars. I used a mixture of ultramarine and phthalo blue for the night sky.
Next, I painted in the evergreen trees in the foreground and around the buildings.
The final step was to paint details and shadows on the buildings and add more darks to the trees before I removed the masking. A few shadows in the snow and STARRY NIGHT was complete!
