How To Paint Fir Trees In Winter
A couple simple techniques and a little time are all that is needed to improve your winter-time fir trees
Fir trees are very prominent in winter landscapes. Their deep green and blue green foliage brings a comforting softness to otherwise bleak hills, fields and tree lines.
It’s easy to paint great looking fir trees with watercolor using a couple basic painting techniques. This quick video tutorial shows how.
Personally, the drawings I put on paper for a painting are minimal and have little indications of detail because I like to have the paint loose and free and have the brush work suggest detail. The drawing layout for this tree has no detail but does note the shapes that represent areas of snow on the boughs.
If you want to follow along it’s a good idea to download the info sheet which has a copy of the simple drawing layout and materials list.
MATERIALS
You’ll find this same list on the info download, but here’s what you need to follow along:
PAPER : 1 sheet of professional grade 140lb Cold Press watercolor paper about 10”h x 8”w. Saunders or Magnani1404 Italia papers are recommended.
BRUSHES : Medium (#12 or #14) and Small (#8 or #10) Rounds
PAINT COLORS : Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue , Burnt Sienna, Quinacridone Deep Gold.
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METHOD
You can probably picture a beautiful fir tree after a snowfall. The outer parts of the boughs catching some of that snow. Areas deeper underneath the layers of boughs don't really catch that snow because they're sheltered by those above. The trick is to represent the layers of branches with snow on the outer portions.
The color palette is simple and limited but works well for this subject. The one color that may be unfamiliar is Quinacridone Deep Gold. If you don't happen to have Quinacridone Deep Gold, you can actually mix a little bit of a cool yellow, something like a Aureolin, or Lemon Yellow, with Burnt Sienna to get the grayer version of greens that we really need for this exercise.
Start out by painting the snow itself. Use a blue gray, that is a mixture of Cobalt Blue and Burnt Sienna. The snow color will be painted over the entire tree, even where there will eventually be green boughs. This layer is very wet - think of it as a wet-in-wet wash with good color strength but not too dark.
Next is a slightly darker blue-gray mixed with Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna. This version darkens areas that might indicate where some of that snow is catching a bit more shadow.
The greens go in dry-in-wet. So we want color very thick, more or less right out of the well. It should be a rich green, mixed from Cobalt Blue and Quinacridone Deep Gold. This gets followed an even darker green mixed from Ultramarine Blue and Quinacridone Deep Gold. This mixture is also very thick.
The key to success is in the wetness of the initial wash of snow color. With out enough water in the wash, it will become too dry for the thicker greens to blend well.
The darker areas are important for a sense of dimension - they reveal apparent three dimensional form of that tree.
This method and techniques will result in really great looking fir trees every
If you’re interested in painting a full winter scene with snow-covered fir trees, we have a full, step-by-step lesson for painting this beautiful, sunny winter scene.
Click the button below for a quick preview of the lesson.