Winter Gray Fun Sketch

The most magical time in winter is when the sky is darker than the snow on the ground in the middle of the day. Yessss. I love it. I love looking at snowy rooftops against a gray sky as well. I remember as a kid looking out the window on late afternoons in December at a snow saturated dark sky, counting all the white rooftops on the next block. Oh how much fun I had!

Well, I’m still having a bunch of fun, painting is the best way to document a moment in time. A moment you may love.

Winter tree sketch #1 has the truth stretched a little bit. As you can see in the photo, there really was not any snow sitting on the limbs. However, I love snow resting on my limbs so in my world that’s how it looks. Also, I eliminated the distracting houses in the background. As an artist you can do whatever you want. If you want green snow instead of white, then darn it, paint that snow green.

Winter tree photo #2 is a little hard to make out. I don’t know what kind of tree this is but I just like its character. It’s like the underdog. Not very sturdy, nor tall, not very handsome at all, but I have a soft spot for it. Go little tree, go.

Winter tree #3 does not really look like the photo at all, but that’s okay. This was the last sketch I did and I think I was rushing it a bit, getting a little tired. I never count branches and get too technical, that would be just torture. You are supposed to have fun sketching not get frustrated with too much detail.

I only used three colors for these sketches; ultramarine blue, sepia, and sometimes burnt sienna. With different concentrations of paint mixture, you can get many variations of color. I left the white of the paper to show through for the snow. I love the stark qualities of these sketches.

Even though winter can be gray, there still is so much beauty about this awesome season.