Winter Snow Scene Tutorial

I receive lots of emails each winter from people requesting tips and information on how to create winter snow scenes.  I wrote this tutorial last year and posted it on the Rubbernecker Blog and I thought it would be worth while to repeat here this season. I hope you will try your hand at a winter scene and if you do please come back and post a link to your blog or gallery upload.  I would love to see what you come up with.

Step 1:  Plan your Scene.

The first thing you want to do is decide what images you want in the foreground of your scene and stamp them first. I choose to stamp my images with waterproof pigment ink since watercolor is my medium of choice. You should make your choice of ink based on the coloring tools you will be using.

Step 2.  Masking.

Create masks for your first images and begin building your scene by stamping more images over the mask.  See the fence being added to the trees.

You can see in the next few pictures that I move the masks around as necessary to continue building the scene.

I add masks over the fence area so I can begin adding trees in the background of the scene.

I stamp trees in the background of the scene by stamping over the masked fence and trees.

I move the fence mask around to add the final trees to the scene. Look how the whole scene became more lifelike than the three original stamped trees.

Step 3.  Add Color.

Color your images and breath life into your scene. Isn’t it amazing how color explodes an image to life. I watercolored my images with reinkers mixed with water using watercolor brushes. There are so many other choices of coloring for you to use so find the one that works best for you. Watercolor Markers, Watercolor Crayons, Watercolor Pencils, Twinkling H20’s, Prismacolor Pencils and Gamsol, and the ever popular Copic Markers.

Add color to your sky by painting with a brush or by sponging color .  I love to use sponges to apply sky color.

Step 4.  Add Snow.

I squeeze white pigment reinker into the ink pad lid to make it available for me to pick up with a brush.  I lightly paint the ink over the areas I want covered like the top of the fence  rails and posts, the ground areas and tree branch tips.

I use different size brushes such as tiny fine ones for the tree tips and fence and a large one for the ground area. You can create a real looking ground cover if you paint on a fine layer of ink, emboss and then apply additional  layers where you want to build up the embossing to create ridges, etc.

Note the delicate little tips of snow on the trees.

Use a snow image and stamp the pigment ink over the scene to create the falling snow.  You can choose to wait until all of your pigment ink is added to emboss all at once or do it step by step.  I tend to do it step by step as it seems to help me not loose track of what I am doing in the scene.

When I do a scene card like this I tend to use simple embellishments and sentiments as I love to have the scene speak for itself.

Let it snow…Let it snow….Let it snow!

Stamps:  Rubbernecker Tree Set and Kittie Kits The Moose is Loose, Peace Sentiment and Snow Image Winter Holiday Collection,

Paper:  Chocolate Chip, Watercolor

Ink:  Brilliance Black Graphite, Distress Peeled Paint, Old Olive, Caramel, Soft Sky, Barely Banana, White Craft,

Accessories:  White Embossing Powder, Brushes, Masks, Twill