How To Draw A Winter Wonderland

Lovely white snow can bring out the child in many of us. Though it tends to create chaos, there is a certain beauty of a landscape transformed into a white wonderland. Snow formations on even the most demure object can turn it into a work of art, if just for a short while.

Snow is an artist favorite to capture on canvas, thanks to the shadow play and simple color palette that transform even simple details into strong points of art.

One of the best things about creating a snowy scene is that most of the landscape and background needs less thought than if it didn't have snow. Sometimes a pale wash of color with some shading to define the layout of the land is enough.

DRAWING SNOW AROUND BUILDINGS AND OBJECTS

For buildings, objects or living subjects, you will need to learn how to make it look like they are in or on the snow. This is very easy to do by shading and mounding up the snow around them, depending on how deep you want your snow to be.

To demonstrate some basics, I have drawn a very simple landscape with the outlines of a house and some trees. I have not drawn the bottom portion of the house nor the trees since these portions will be obscured by snow in the next step.

On the roof: Redraw the roof of the house with curvy lines to create the look of being snow covered. Lightly erase the original roof lines as you go. Let the straight roof you drew originally become your guide to making the rooftop snow placement look natural.

Curve or mound up the snow on the chimney or any other rooftop details you may be using.

On the windows: Draw small mounds snow on window tops.

On the trees: For the trees, I simply drew in a little foliage detail peeking through in just a few spots. This immediately creates a snow covered look.

You can leave your snow scene very simple and it will still be lovely and serene. But if more detailing is what you like, here are a few more pointers.

ADDITIONAL SNOWY DETAILS

On the trees: Deepen the shading on the foliage in just a few places right where is starts to show from under the snow.

On the house : Add some shading under all the places where the snow overhangs the roof, windows and doorways. This will strengthen the snow effect.

DRAWING FALLING SNOWFLAKES

When and if you add falling snowflakes, make some flakes bigger in the foreground to create depth.