Just Paint It: PIY (paint it yourself) Snowman

I’m not gonna say it. I’m not.

This is a Super Simple Snowman to paint.

Sorry. I couldn’t resist. It is super simple.

I say Super Simple all the time and people always say “Yeah – super simple for you!”

It reminds me of when I taught dance and I’d always say “You can do this – Trust Me!” I didn’t realize how many times I pleaded with my dance students to “Trust Me!”

Until one of my students made me a t-shirt with TRUST ME blazoned across the chest.

Maybe I need a t-shirt that says SUPER SIMPLE across it now because I write it so often about my painting tutorials.

Can you see it? Me, wearing SUPER SIMPLE across my chest?

Better than REALLY EASY, I guess.

How to Paint a Snowman

Paint your background with a light, light blue. If you have the Floating Medium, great. If not, go get some.

Not right now. But next time you’re at the craft store.

You can thank me later.

You can just slap the blue on the paper any ol’ way.

Or you can make horizontal strokes across the top of the watercolor paper and curved strokes along the bottom half.

Horizontal = Sky

Curved = Hills

Another view – same thing, but you can see the strokes better.

Paint White on top of the ‘hills’. Just the tops. You’ll want to leave the blue at the bottom so it looks like more than one hill.

See?

Paint the outline of the snowman with Blue.

Add some trees, if you want. They’re easy . . . trust me.

Paint White over Snowman and trees.

Don’t get all picky-ooohnie about this. (That’s a technical ‘artiste’ term.)

Just get the White on there. It won’t cover all the blue. You’d have to paint about 3-4 coats to cover the blue. We want the blue to show thru.

Here’s a close up of the trees. Not perfect, see? Just White over the Blue. More here, less there.

Just try it. It works. And it’s perfect in it’s imperfection.

See how the Blue shows thru the White? Looks like shading, doesn’t it? Better than just two white circles, dontcha think?

Now, give Snowman some arms with Blue.

Then add some White.

Now for the Black – or whatever other color you want to use. I used black with a smidgen of White mixed in. Black is just so . . . well, Black!

Then some blue. It’s a darker blue then the one I used for the background.

I guess that’s a little obvious.

I mixed it with a little white for the basecoat of the hatband, scarf and mitten. That way, I can come back with the plain Blue and use it as a shading color.

Now for some details. These little details make all the difference in the world. They make your painting look more ‘grown up’.

And they’re simple. (There I go again . . . )

Line the top and bottom of the hat band with the medium Blue. Then take a smidgen of white to create the brim of the hat. Or white mixed with black, which would be grey. Or a little of both.