If you’re interested in purchasing one of these winter woodland landscapes, several are currently available in my shop. Also, seeing portions of the painting completed in the tutorial may help you understand how beautifully the layers come together as a whole.
Simple Winter Watercolor Art Project for Kids
This simple winter watercolor art is stunning! It makes a great winter art project for older kids and tweens and uses easy watercolor techniques. Kids will learn about using color to create depth and using different types of brushstrokes to achieve different effects.
There are so many fun watercolor techniques for kids to try! Take a look at my collection of watercolor painting for kids for more fun and creative ideas.
I love the smaller size of this painting, it makes a great card size! Working on a smaller scale can sometimes be easier for kids, plus these little paintings just look adorable!
Take a look at this gorgeous snowflake watercolor winter art for another fun winter painting idea. For more winter project ideas check out my collection of beautiful winter art for kids to make!
Create your own simple winter watercolor painting
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Supplies
- Watercolor paper
- Watercolor paint
- Paintbrushes
- Paint palette
- Pencil
- Old toothbrush
- Wooden board and painter’s tape (optional)
- Paper towels
- White acrylic paint
- Water dish
Instructions to paint your simple winter watercolor scene
1. First, get your paper ready. I cut our 11 x 15 inch watercolor paper in four, so each piece measures 5.5 x 7.5 inches. Tape your paper down to your board if you are using one.
Using a wooden board is an optional step, but it really helps to keep the paper steady as you are painting, helps the paper to dry flat and gives a nice white border around your finished painting. If you don’t have a board, your painting will still look great!
You can check out this post on beginner watercolor supplies for kids for more details about using a wooden board and the other types of supplies to use.
With a pencil, lightly draw in the snow hill. You don’t need to draw in where the trees will go just yet.
2. Have kids decide on three colors for the sky. A light blue, a medium blue and then a color for the sunset. We used purple for one painting and bright pink for another painting. Both colors looked beautiful in the sky!
Test out your colors on a scrap piece of paper first, remember that they will dry slightly lighter.
Paint your sky with water first. Use a clean brush and clean water for this step. You don’t want your paper to be soaking, if you find it too wet, you can dab it with some paper towels.
Start with the lightest blue and paint the sky closest to your snow hill. Use a flat brush for this step with your brush strokes going across the sky, not up and down.
While the paint is still wet, quickly move on to your bright blue color and paint more of the sky. Finally, paint your third color in and have that go all the way to the top.
You might find that your sky looks too light, you can go in and add more color in to darken up some areas while the paint is still wet.
Let your paper dry completely before moving on to the next step.
This is called a wet on wet technique, you take a look at these 5 watercolor techniques for kids for more details.
3. Once your paper is dry, you can draw in where your evergreen trees will go. Use a pencil to draw straight lines to indicate where your trees will go. You are only drawing in the green trees first.
There are two colors for the trees, dark green and black. The dark green ones are painted first and the black trees are painted on top. This will give the illusion that the green trees are farther away and the black trees are in the foreground.
Mix your two colors for the trees, dark green and black, and test them out on scrap paper.
This is a good time for kids to practice painting evergreen trees on scrap paper to get a feel for the brushstrokes they need. With a round brush start at the top of a tree and paint in the tree branches. Keep the tree shape by painting the trees slightly wider at the bottom.
Once kids get the hang of painting trees, they can paint in their trees on their paper. Paint all of the green trees and let them dry.
4. Draw where you want your black trees to go. Make sure that they are not completely covering up your green trees.
Using the same round brush, paint in your black evergreen trees. Remind kids to go slowly and carefully for this step and not to completely paint over the other trees.
Let the trees dry before moving on.
5. The next step is to paint the shadows on the snow. You need very light blue paint for this and you don’t want to overdo it!
Paint over the pencil line for the snow hill and paint a few brushstrokes coming down the hill. Soften up these lines by painting over them with a clean brush and clean water.
6. The final step for this simple winter watercolor is to splatter on the snow with a toothbrush. You will need white acrylic paint, dilute the paint with water to make it easier to splatter.
Take an old paintbrush, dip it into the diluted paint and run your finger over the bristles to create the snow splatters. Kids love this part!
This is a messy step! It might get on your clothes and your table, so wearing old clothes or a paint smock for kids is a good idea. Also having newspaper down will protect your table. It even splattered on to our floor! Not sure how it got that far, but it wiped off just fine.
If you taped your paper down, let your painting dry completely before carefully peeling off your tape.
This simple winter watercolor painting is so pretty! I love how the colorful sky contrasts against the evergreen trees and how the snow makes the whole painting look magical. This is such a great winter art project that kids will love to make and be proud to display!
If you are looking for more art projects to try, take a look at our ultimate collection of amazing art projects for kids!
10-Minute Disclaimer
When I started posting these woodland scenes on social media, so many people commented that they could not paint these in 10 minutes. Ten minutes does not count prep (sketching, masking) and drying time but refers to active painting time—though I probably spend less than 10 minutes actively painting each one.
Overall, these woodland scenes probably take about 20 to 30-minutes from start to finish. That’s still not a lot of time, so if each one takes you twice as long, don’t fret! It’s not about the time spent but about the joy in the process.
Painting quickly and efficiently comes with experience, but the painting technique used with these landscapes is a great way to practice. Not only is this technique wonderful for learning to be more loose and spontaneous with watercolor, but it can also a great warm-up exercise before tackling a larger landscape or painting.
Tips for 10-Minute Landscapes
Keep it small.
Think of these 10-minute landscapes as vignettes. All of the examples that I show in this post are about the size of a postcard. This small size allows me to paint quickly and freely without worrying if I make a mistake. After all, there’s not of time and emotion invested in a 4×6-inch painting.
Keep it simple.
Any elements requiring details should be kept to a minimum. Two to three foreground trees, a couple of fence posts, a few grasses or a scattering of snow are all the details needed to set the foreground scene, so don’t overdo it.
Work in multiples.
It’s not a bad idea to paint two or three of these vignettes at the same time. While waiting on one to dry, feel free to begin another. It’s not about being productive. Instead, this helps lift performance pressure—if the paint doesn’t do what you want in one, simply move onto another. Also, working on another painting helps distract an impatient artist (like me) from going back into a painting too early and mucking it up.
Recommended Supplies
You don’t need much to create these mini landscapes, but this is one project where a few, key ingredients can really make a difference. Because you’ll be working very quickly wet-in-wet, you’ll need supplies that can hold up under pressure. Here’s what I recommend.
[Links in the supply list go to products used in the tutorial; contains affiliates.]
Really good paper.
This technique requires a paper that can handle a lot of water, so student-grade or budget watercolor papers will rarely cut it. Also, a relatively hard-sized paper works best. I prefer 140# cold-pressed. Papers are personal, but I’ve used Hahnemuhle Cezanne, Stonehenge Aqua, and Saunder’s Waterford with excellent results and even budget-friendly Strathmore Windpower with success. I didn’t have much luck using heavy-weight papers or Arches, Kilimanjaro, or Fabriano.
Mostly transparent, single-pigment watercolors.
The only place I would use opaque pigments, if at all, are in the foreground elements. Avoid opaque and multi-pigment watercolors in the background wash. These can easily become muddy when mixing wet-in-wet. Also, opaques tend to have a limited flow rate on the page, and you’ll need good dispersement for this technique. For example, Phthalos, Quins, and Perylenes are mostly transparent and have great flow. You can see my current palette here.
Other supplies:
- Artist tape
- Coroplast or other board
- Pencil
- Frisket or masking fluid
- Two high-quality brushes, one large and one small (IMO,Isabeyare the best!)
- Rubber cement pick-up eraser
- Optional: toothbrush, salt, white gel pen, etc
- Water & towels, of course
Basic winter watercolor painting technique
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| Prefer to order by mail? Email Susie for mailing information [email protected] |
| As a teacher with a passion to share her skills Susie Short’s step-by-step instructions in Hints and Tips for Painting the Many Aspects of Snow in Watercolor DVD Video Workshop and Painting the Winter Landscape includes many close-up camera angles. Painting the winter landscape covered with a blanket of snow is one of the most compelling subjects for the watercolor artist. That blanket of snow is reflective of many colors around it and normally is anything but pure white. Basic watercolor techniques are demonstrated and clearly explained. Composition and value are also explained as they relate to working with the white landscape. These DVD video workshops are user friendly for watercolorists of all skill levels. No drawing experience is required. |
| $29.95 DVD Snow Tips |
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| In Painting the Winter Landscape in Watercolor DVD Video Workshop you will learn how to mix a variety of glowing grays found in the shadows and contours of any snow scene. This is complete painting showing each step of the painting process. Basic watercolor techniques are used for painting a wet-in-wet background and using dry brush techniques for the details and finishing work. (almost 2 full hours of painting) |
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| Copyright © 2008 Susie Short Studio Inc. All rights reserved |
Hints and Tips for Painting Snow DVD – Painting the Winter Landscape DVD
| DVD TWIN PACK Painting the Winter Landscape and Hints and Tips for Painting the Many Aspects of Snow Together in One Box Set $59.95 plus s/h |
Comments by viewers:
I spent many hours viewing this DVD (Snow Tips) simply because I could set it to pause and work along with the instructor. I found
that Susie’s instructions were easy to follow and I did learn a great deal. I did all of the suggested small watercolors. The tip with the
credit card for painting trees was the best! I can keep these small ideas in my file for future reference. Thank you. Helen
