In my last post I talked about how whites are not white. Today I am saying that snow is not white. Today is a perfect day in Boulder to test that. When I woke up this morning it was snowing, really snowing, and we already had about three inches. To test the "color" of snow, take a white piece of paper and compare it to the snow. The snow I am seeing out my window is "pinkish" and "yellowish" compared to my white paper. The shadows are a warm gray. Because there is no bright sunshine, all of the shapes in the snow have very little contrast or value change.
Snow has very different colors when the sun is shining as you can see in the painting "Colorado Sunrise." Shadows define what snow looks like. Soft shadows define the shapes of piles of snow or snowbanks. When the sun is shining, strong cast shadows follow the contours of the snow. These shadows reflect the sky and if the sky is blue, these shadows can be bright blue and often appear garish. One watercolor artist painted her shadows turquoise and it was one of the most interesting and beautiful snow painting I have ever seen.
Because my painting is about the sunrise, the sun is not yet very strong and the shadows have soft edges. The value shift between the snow and the cast shadows is not as strong as it would be in bright sunlight and the color of the shadows is more muted, a "purplish" gray. Because whites reflect what is around them and snow is white, its colors change constantly. Spend time looking at snow and thinking about the "ish" colors. That is the best way to learn how to paint it. © 2009 Joan Wolbier
