How to Draw Snowy Pines in Colored Pencil

Have you ever wanted to send original art for holiday cards to special people, or seen those attractive blank cards available in art supply shops and card shops? Here's how to create a beautiful winter design in colored pencils that will show your closest loved ones how much you care.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• 24 color set of colored pencils or watercolor pencils
• H, 2H or higher H grade graphite pencil for sketching and soft B, 2B or softer pencil for value drawing
• Kneaded eraser
• White vinyl eraser
• Blank holiday cards
• Acid-free drawing paper
• Workable matte fixative

1. Original drawing "Snowy Fir Trees" by Robert A. Sloan Look at photos of snowy pines and bare winter saplings, study how the snow lays on the branches. Choose a reference. Mine is actually a serious drawing I did several years ago, which I'll change a little for this demonstration. It's what gave me the idea for this step by step project, since I loved it when I first did it in my sketchbook.
2. Value sketch for Snowy Pines Using a soft graphite pencil or charcoal pencil, do a small value drawing of the scene as you'd like to see it in color. I'm moving the pines around a bit so that this becomes a new drawing. Don't do this directly on the greeting card, use a sheet of drawing paper or even scratch paper for it, this is preliminary. Sketchbook paper is good enough though, that if you like it you can keep the pencil drawing as its own artwork.
   
   Spray workable matte fixative on your value drawing if it came out well, that will protect it from further smudging.
   
   You don't have to stick to this value drawing exactly in the final version, but it'll help with getting the lights and darks where they belong, and it's easier to see where they are in black and white. It's also an idea sketch. I put in a little rabbit, white in his winter coloration, down at the right, and added a sapling in front of the taller tree that I'll probably take out since it doesn't look as good as I thought it would.
3. Enhanced base sketch, which should be done very faint in a hard pencil to be drawn over Copy your value drawing on another piece of drawing paper or on the card. Sketch very lightly and do faint outlines for the trees rather than drawing in any of the shadowed dark areas.
   
   Adjust the shapes and composition to fit the shape of the greeting card if it was different from your initial value drawing. It's no trouble making trees taller or fatter to fit within different proportions. I moved the little rabbit closer to the center in my sketch and put him sitting close to some grass that sticks out through the snow, unfortunately my real sketch is so light it won't show. So I'll trace it and scan the tracing for you.
   
   Remember, anything at this pencil stage can be changed or moved. Rearrange the composition elements so that it looks nice on your card, the horizon does not cut it dead smack in the middle, and there's about half an inch on all sides to fade it out into a vignette effect. More at the corners if you want it to have a slightly oval look with rounded corners.
   
   It does not matter how many trees or tufts of grass you put in. If you want it horizontal, add some more trees, some smaller in the distance and others toward the front, make them different heights and widths. Add more tufts of grass or snow-buried bushes here and there. It's your card, and if you do this on more than one you'll have a great variety in your drawings.
4. Trees have initial green shading Sharpen your darkest green pencil and start sketching the undersides of clumps of snow. The direction of your strokes will help establish the shape of the branches underneath, whether they are weighed down by heavy clumps and ice or springy and holding the snow up before they weary. Do the darkest parts first and do some shading between the first tree and the second to make the front tree stand out more.
   
   This is the trickiest step. You're drawing what's under something to define what's there, and showing clumps of snow by showing what's between them. Use short jagged strokes that go in the direction of the pine needles. Follow both examples carefully for how to define clumps of snow -- if you need to, outline some of the clumps themselves to make it easier to work around them.
   
   Practice this stage a few times if it doesn't come out well in the value drawing, because the process is the same at the value drawing stage -- and pencil is easier to correct than colored pencil.
5. Saplings and brown details drawn, including trunks of pines and rabbit fur texture Sharpen the darkest brown in your set and sketch in the saplings behind the trees, a few of the grass stems and very lightly sketch in some texture on the rabbit. Rabbits gain their winter coloring in patches, so I decided to give him some areas of pale brown to make him show up against the snow instead of being defined only by his shadow. His eye should be dark even if you decide to do him entirely in white.
   
   For fur texture, use light flicking strokes, very short, where you would see shadows in the fur or where that color patch is darker. Go in the direction of the fur and let the stroke trail off as you flick it.
6. Gray sky and shadows added with a blunt colored pencil Let your gray pencil wear down till it's blunt, scribble with it on something else till it's got a blunt angled point. Fill in the sky with soft overlapping short strokes to make a smooth tonal layer, fading it around the edges of an oval area. Try to keep it smooth, but keep all the strokes at the same angle so that if they're visible, they don't become distracting but are seen as a texture effect.
   
   Shade in some shadows behind hummocks of snow and shadow behind the brown grass and twigs, shadow the rabbit's footprints with the gray.
7. Snowy Pines finished Start using other colors to give the card a richer, more complex look. To bring the foreground grasses closer, sketch in more with reddish brown and gold around the brown ones, brighten those.
   
   Tone the shadows on the ground with a little light blue and violet, not too much, keep them grayed rather than making them bright since the sky isn't blue, but shadows on snow always look at least a little bluish. Strengthen the brown details on the rabbit and put a little pink inside the ear nearest the viewer. Shade a little more inside the trees and strengthen the dark trunks of the pines, but don't fill them solidly -- jagged vertical strokes with gray between looks more like pine bark.
   
   Sign and shadow your signature as if it was a grass clump!
   
   If you do this on a card, you can leave space under or on top of the drawing for a holiday message. Or just put the message on the inside and present your loved ones with a beautiful original artwork they can frame and keep as a card that's also a present! Be sure to spray the color original with workable fixative too when it's done, as that prevents wax bloom on colored pencil drawings.

Tips & Warnings

• If you find you make a lot of changes on the value drawing stage, purchase Berol Sanford Col-Erase colored pencils to do the cards with. They erase just like normal graphite pencils and have the texture of a No. 2 pencil. Col-Erase will erase completely unless driven in so deep that you wouldn't be able to get a graphite pencil line out.
• For a lovely variation, use watercolor pencils and wash over just the gray sky background. If you do this, do the background before doing the saplings or anything else, let it dry completely and then do the other stages dry. It will make a beautiful texture contrast.
• If you use Col-Erase pencils, do not use the pink erasers that come on the pencils. They will streak the paper pink. Use a white vinyl eraser or kneaded eraser instead for cleaning and lifting.