Norwegian winter

This hour-long video covers the following material.

About This Painting

This is a wonderfully moody, monochromatic scene — a Norwegian boathouse with its reflection in icy, glassy water, with a warm splash of red in the timber building to draw the eye. The scene is not technically complicated, but it rewards careful preparation in the drawing stage, since the colour work is relatively simple once the foundation is right.

Materials

For colours, you'll primarily need a blue and a brown to mix your grays — cobalt blue and quinacridone sienna work well, but ultramarine or Prussian blue are fine alternatives. You'll also need a dull red for the boathouse (dragon's blood, English red, or cadmium/pyro red toned down with brown). For finishing touches, have a white Posca marker, dark brown ink, and a white gel pen on hand. A toothbrush and a small amount of white gouache are optional for the snow spatter effect at the end.

The Pencil Drawing

It's worth taking your time here, because the colour stage is quite straightforward and a solid drawing sets you up well. Start with a general outline of the building to establish your proportions and make sure everything fits on the page before adding detail. For the reflection, use a ruler to drop the lines down — windows should align with windows, edges with edges. An offset reflection will look odd. The background is kept simple, with trees only near the focal point and minimal detail further away. If you'd rather skip the drawing and focus on the painting, a traceable drawing is provided — no judgement!

If you're using masking fluid to preserve the snow reflections in the water, apply it now and make sure it's completely dry before you start painting.

Painting the Background (Wet on Wet)

Wet the entire background area with clean water using a flat brush, cutting carefully around the roof line. Have a paper towel in your other hand to mop up any water that strays. Check from the side that there are no dry patches and avoid a dry halo around the building.

Mix cobalt blue with a small amount of quinacridone sienna. The key rule with this mix: avoid green — you want the result to read as either blue or brown, not somewhere in between. Keep the background lighter than you might expect — if you go too dark here, you won't have enough contrast range left for the water and bank later.

Drop the paint gently into the wet layer rather than scrubbing it in, so the colour can move freely. Go slightly darker along the roof line so the snow-covered roof reads as light against it. Leave white areas for the snow-laden trees. Add a touch more brown in places for variety, but keep it cool — this is a cold scene and the warm colour is being saved for the boathouse.

To create a snowy, textured feeling in the background, partially dry the wet wash with a hairdryer until the paper is just damp (it should have a sheen but feel almost touchable), then flick clean water into it with a rigger or fine brush. This creates soft blooms that read as snowflakes. Leave this to dry naturally — using the hairdryer now will stop the blooms from developing.

Snow Shadows in the Foreground

While you still have your gray mix, add soft shadow marks to the snow in the foreground to give the ground some form and suggest it slopes away. Paint strokes in the direction of the slope, mixing in more blue or more brown as you go to keep the grays interesting. Soften some edges with clean water so you have a mix of hard and soft. Keep a little of this mix aside — you'll use it again when adding detail to the snow on the building. Reserve the brightest whites for the focal point: the roof of the boathouse and a streak of light leading in from either side of the composition.

Painting the Water and Reflections

Before you start, mix up all the colours you'll need: your main gray (cobalt blue and quinacridone sienna, a touch darker than the background), a richer variation with some Prussian blue added for a turquoise quality, and a dark red for the boathouse reflection. Test your dark red on scrap paper — it needs to be noticeably darker than the colour you'll use for the building itself, so add a touch of blue to knock it back.

Wet the entire water area thoroughly (if you didn't use masking fluid, leave the snow reflection areas dry and tease the colour in carefully with a small brush later). Paint with horizontal strokes, working off the edge of the tape to avoid halos. Once the base colour is in, work darker tones into the water, particularly in the corners near the white reflections — those areas need to be dark to make the lights read.

Paint the dark red boathouse reflection while the paper is still wet. Vary the colour slightly — a little darker on one side where the light is weaker. Keep your brush relatively dry to avoid cauliflowers: make sure the paint on your brush is thicker than what's on the paper.

While the water is still wet, lift out the post and jetty reflections using a clean, dry brush. Clean and dry the brush between each stroke — if you just keep dragging, you'll smear rather than lift. Work quickly, as the marks become sharper and harder to pull back as the paper dries. A mix of soft and sharp reflections is more interesting than everything being uniform.

The Rocky Bank

This is where you establish your darkest darks, which give the whole painting its tonal range. Use the same blue-brown mix, but go very dark — add Payne's gray if needed to reach the depth you want. Paint the closest bank darkest, then lighten slightly (add water) for the bank behind it, and lighter still for anything further back. Leave a little reflected light under the jetty. Add some texture along the shoreline — small rocks, hints of snow — to keep it from being a flat shape. Once dry, deepen the reflection in the water with another glaze of the same mix plus a little Prussian blue, using the tip of the brush to suggest soft, wobbly ripples.

Painting the Boathouse

Use a muted, slightly dirty red for the timber — not a bright red, since this is overcast light. Paint in the direction of the vertical wooden slats as much as possible. The side catching the light gets the brighter mix; the shadow side gets a touch of blue added. Leaving a few small gaps is fine — they can read as snow catching on the eaves. Paint the smaller wooden elements (the pot, the details) in the same way, keeping them in shade. Don't worry if your brushwork is a little wobbly — the pen work at the end will tighten things up.

Adding Detail and Pen Work

Once everything is thoroughly dry, work through the painting from background to foreground. Add the background trees with a small brush and light paint — they shouldn't compete with the focal point. Grow them from the ground up, and let some go off the edge of the page. Then work forward, adding detail to the jetty, tires, posts and the snow on the building. Always go back to look at the whole painting rather than getting absorbed in one area, and ask yourself: does this make sense? What does the painting need — not what did the reference photo show?

Remove the masking fluid. If the reserved whites are too stark, tone them down with very watery paint — a tiny touch of red works well in the snow reflections. For pen work, use dark brown ink selectively on the shadow sides and darker areas, and the white Posca marker to crisp up the roof line if needed. The white gel pen is good for sharp highlights. The goal is to strengthen the contrast between soft washes and sharp edges without overworking it — if an area already looks good, leave it alone.

As a final touch, add a small amount of cobalt turquoise (or lavender) to the focal point — a colour not used anywhere else in the painting. This draws the eye right where you want it.

Optional: Snow Spatter

Put a little white gouache on a separate palette so it doesn't contaminate your watercolours, add a touch of water, and use an old toothbrush to flick fine spatters across the painting. A toothbrush gives more control than a paintbrush — hold it close to the paper so you can direct the spatter. Test on scrap paper first. The wetter the mix, the larger the marks. This is entirely optional — if you're happy with the painting as it is, leave it as is.

Sign, dry, and remove the tape. Happy painting!