Winter Bridge: Capturing Winter's Glow in Watercolor

1. Intro Skillshare: Hello and welcome to my skillshare class, where we'll embark on a creative journey together. Exploring the art of painting, a serene winter scene I've named Winter Bridge to Come. I'm Chris a watercolor and digital artist, and I'm thrilled to guide you through the step by step process of bringing this beautiful landscape to life. Throughout this class, our primary focus will be on crafting dreamy winter landscape with the soothing ambience of a warm winter afternoon. I'll walk you through the techniques of painting. Snow covered pine trees, depicting an old bridge with a beautiful setting, and capturing the unique mood of winter. Together we'll explore the nuances of working with color to convey this fabulous atmosphere. Whether you're a seasoned artist or a beginner seeking a challenge, my instructions are designed to be accessible, making it easy for you to create this painting. The tutorial is thoughtfully divided into short, manageable segments, ensuring a smooth and enjoyable learning experience. As I guide you step by step through the entire artistic process, I'll provide you with resources that will help you get started. Join me on this creative journey and let's get started. 2. Your Project: For your class project, I encourage you to join me in following the entire process of painting. This project is truly enjoyable and by the end, you'll have created a beautiful winter scene painting with a warm and cozy vibe. The main goal is to introduce you to various concepts, ideas, and techniques that you can later apply in your own paintings. Please don't hesitate to share your progress photos and the final painting with the class. You can upload them to the Projects and Resources section by clicking on the Submit Project button. Providing a brief description of your process and any challenges you faced during your creative journey can be helpful for both fellow students and me. This allows for valuable feedback and support. If you encounter any questions or concerns during the process, please feel free to ask in the discussion section. I'm here to assist you in any way I can. Lastly, I highly recommend watching each lesson before you start your painting. This will help you become more familiar with the techniques and better prepared for what to expect, leading to a more confident and enjoyable painting experience. If you find this class helpful, I would greatly appreciate it. If you could leave an honest review, your feedback will help me create better content and assist other students in deciding whether to take this class. Thank you in advance. 3. Resources: I've prepared some helpful resources for your project, which you can find in the Projects and Resources section. In the resources, you'll find a PDF file containing a list of the supplies I used for this painting. While it's not necessary to use the exact same supplies, I recommend using 100% cotton paper. For the best results, you can use your preferred paints and brushes. You'll also find a reference photo and my finished painting, both of which can provide inspiration for your own artwork. Additionally, there are line drawings available in different sizes that you can print and transfer into your watercolor paper. You can choose the size that suits your preferences. I painted this on 12 by nine size. Feel free to explore these resources and use them to create your unique and beautiful painting. If you have any questions along the way, please don't hesitate to ask. Enjoy your project. 4. Introduction: Hello everyone and welcome to this winter scene tutorial. Today we're going to dive into the art of painting. A serene landscape featuring an old bridge and a sun that gracefully sets, casting a warm and cozy mood over the entire scene. The more landscapes I paint, the more I appreciate why they are such delightful subjects. Personally, I find that landscapes offer a unique freedom for interpretation. There's a liberating feeling that you don't have to stick rigidly to a reference photo to create a compelling scene. Landscapes are forgiving in the sense that you don't need to meticulously paint every single branch or leaf. What truly matters is capturing the mood and the overall atmosphere that landscapes convey. In our winter bridge painting, we're aiming to evoke a sense of coziness. Envisioning a warm winter afternoon with the sun gracefully setting and casting beautiful, warm colors across the whole scene. I'll be working on a 129 paper for this tutorial. After sketching the scene, I've stapled my paper to my Gator board and taped it on all four sides to maintain a clean border. Once the painting is complete, I didn't wet the paper so it's not stretched initially. It will naturally stretch while painting, and the staples will ensure the paper stays firmly in place during the stretching. Now, with your art supplies at the ready, let's get started. Happy painting. 5. Setting the Mood: We're going to begin by establishing the overall mood of the scene. After taking a closer look at everything around, it's clear that it represents a dreamy scene with gentle color changes. The worm hues of the sunset create a striking contrast with the cooler tones of the snow. However, due to the reflective nature of the snow, it captures and reflects the sun's warmth. As a result, the whole scene gives off warm colors. Even though it feels cold, like winter, the sky represents the farthest plane in the scene. Our starting point should be from the sky to infuse a worm ambience throughout the scene. We can extend the sun's warmth to every element at this stage. If we think about it, the snow and sky primarily consist of light tones, while the trees, water, rocks, and the breech exhibit darker tones. Since dark tones can be effectively painted over light tones, applying a light layer of paint across the entire scene now allows us to seamlessly address the darker elements later without any difficulties. For this, I'll be using my large flat brush, which I typically use for wetting my paper. But this time I'll be using it for painting as well. The goal is to cover the entire surface with water and paint. It's essential to avoid using a small brush. Opt for the largest brush in your collection. Let's begin by preparing the colors. Start with Windsor Yellow, which will be used for the brightest yellow around the sun. Additionally, we will need a warm yellow, and my warm yellow will be Windsor Yellow. Deep for the sky, we will use various tones such as oranges, pinks, and reds. And this can be achieved by adding one more color, which is permanent rose. For the snow, we will use cobald blue and ultramarine blue. I want to highlight the importance of permanent rose in the process, because it plays a crucial role in bridging the gap between yellows and blues. When combined with yellows, it produces warm reds, oranges, and pinks. While with blues, it creates purples. Permanent rose on its own provides a cooler shade of pink. Now dip your large brush into clean water and apply a water layer across the entire surface. Use both horizontal and vertical brush strokes, and observe the paper from an angle to ensure that there are no dry areas. Next, take Windsor yellow and begin by applying the color around the sun. It's crucial to keep in mind that the paint will spread in the water. Apply the yellow a bit farther from the sun, allowing the paint some room to spread, but not to cover the white paper entirely. The objective is to preserve the brightness of the white sun. The shape of the sun doesn't have to be a perfect circle. If the yellow paint flows into the white sun area, Don't worry, you can always lift off some paint later to create a lighter spot. Now transition to Windsor Yellow deep and then permanent rose, Applying those colors to the sky area to create a serene winter afternoon with pinkish clouds. Note that we are painting large areas without focusing on specific details. Think about the overall color composition at this stage as you move downward transition to blues. Apply cobald blue and ultramarine blue in the snow area. While snow is generally white, it reflects colors from its surroundings. Therefore, introducing blues for shadows and subtle hues from the sky is essential. Reflect the sky colors in the water by adding oranges and pinks on the right hand side, introduce some blue, allow the colors to blend naturally on the paper. I considered masking off certain areas to preserve the paper's whiteness in the brightest spots. However, for simplicity, we won't be using masking fluid this time. Perhaps in the future winter tutorial we can explore adding more details and incorporating masking fluid. Add a touch of blue above the bridge to suggest distant trees Now introduce more clean permanent rows to the sky. Permanent rows is an excellent choice for creating the impression of a freezing winter sky. After applying all the colors, tilt your painting to encourage the paint to flow on the paper and blend the colors. Continue this until you see that the paint is no longer moving. To create subtle variations, take a sheet of paper towel and form a sharp tip. Use this to selectively remove paint from lighter areas. For instance, make the color of the snow covering the trees lighter in tone. By carefully lifting some paint, there is no need to remove the paint entirely. A tinted paper is totally fine. This will represent the snow that cut the warm light from the sun. I'm also lifting off the paint from the blue areas to create those lighter sections. While masking fluid could have been an option, I chose to simplify the process. Though not perfect, this method is quite effective. Now, clean the taped the painting, removing any beads of paint, and allow everything to dry completely. I left it to dry overnight, but you can speed up the process with a hair dryer. If using a hair dryer, let the painting first hair dry for a few minutes until it loses its shin, and then use the hair dryer. 6. Distant Trees: Once everything is completely dry, we can add another layer of depth by introducing distant trees. Our approach is to paint from the furthest planes and gradually move forward. Beginning with the furthest planes is effective because they have fewer details and the shapes are blurry. Using a large brush, apply a water layer to the sky area just above the bridge where the distant trees will be situated. This layer of water will help create an illusion of distant trees. With simple brush strokes, start with cobald blue, gently applying it above the bridge. The paint spreads in the water, producing a pleasant illusion of soft, blurry tree shapes in the distance. Adjust the color to more orange or pink to suggest trees catching the afternoon sunlight. For larger, blurry trees on the sides use a mix of permanent rose and bald blue. These shapes are deliberately unclear, acting as simple suggestions without including intricate details. Depending on the paper's wetness, the paint will spread more or less as the paper dries. Use a small designer's brush to add slightly more distinct shapes where needed to add more distant shapes. Use a mix of paints gray with ultramarine blue. Use a designer's brush, a rigger brush, or a smaller regular round brush. Use whatever you have available. Apply brush strokes and observe how much the paint spreads. If it spreads too much, wait a few moments. The aim is to incorporate blurry tree shapes in the distance. Introduce color variety by allowing some branches to catch more sunlight, You can switch to more orange hues in such cases. Additionally, mix permanent rows with blue to create purple shapes. I think we can finish at this stage, allow the upper part of the painting to dry. In the meantime, we can move on to add more colors to the water in the next video. 7. Water: While the upper part is drying, let's shift our attention to painting the water. In the reference photo, there are numerous details making the water appear quite complex. While it's possible to replicate each detail precisely, it would be time consuming. Our goal is to simplify this area and generate a compelling impression of water without delving too deeply into intricate details. Begin by wetting the water area. We'll be using a wet on wet technique to achieve blurry shapes that convey a sense of calmness. With a dark mix of paints, gray and ultramarine blue. And a smaller brush, start from the upper part and focus on this area under the rocks. Now, it wouldn't be possible for you to follow each of my brush strokes, but I would like you to describe the general idea, what I'm thinking. Now, the rocks under the snow are dark and I want to reflect the dark color in the water. That's why under the rocks, using more dark paint on the water. I also want to paint horizontal lines that will blur on the wet paper. These horizontal lines will create an impression of water. I'm leaving gaps between those lines so that the color from the previous layer remains visible. Additionally, I'm switching to other colors while painting those lines to introduce more variety and reflect the colors from the sky. Using a large, flat damp brush, I'm pulling the paint downwards, which enhances the water. Finally, I'm adding a few additional horizontal brush strokes with a small brush to create some wavy shapes in the water. And with that, we can finish the stage and allow everything to dry. In the next part, we will begin painting the trees. 8. Trees: I'll be using a brush size six to paint the trees. Arm yourself with a little bit of patience now, but believe me, it will pay off in the end. Let's mix our dark paints gray with a touch of permanent rose. This will give us a nice deep purple, which we can shift more towards blue or pink where needed. Now with this dark tone, we need to paint the trees. At this stage, we just have to feel all the shapes between the branches covered with snow. We don't have to go super dark at this stage, because we will add another layer here. The idea now is just to fill all those areas with a darker tone on the edges of the pine trees. Use short brush strokes to create branch shapes. Try using the negative painting technique to create branches under the snow. Take a closer look at how I'm painting them. In the upper part of the snow laying on the branch, I'm carefully painting around that shape. In the bottom part, I'm employing repeated short brush strokes to suggest the needles. While this approach may not achieve superrealism, it will contribute to a convincing overall image. I allow myself the freedom of interpretation. Sometimes when I paint things like that, I like to imagine it is an illustration for a children's book. It doesn't have to be super realistic, but I appreciate it when the end result resembles the object I'm painting and it is clearly recognizable, I'm just looking for an easy way to create that. I think you will agree with me that when we look at those trees in the context of the whole scene, it's easy to recognize those abstract shapes as pine trees. That's our goal. Here. At the bottom, I simply leave a bit more wet paint. And with a larger brush, I'm softening the edges. I like to call places like this a forgotten edge. It's a space that may or may not be finished later or a place about which I'm not sure what to do. I don't know how to paint that area. I'm softening the edges, leaving it for later. Now we can move on to other trees and repeat that process. This time I'm adding more permanent rose to paints gray. I'm using the pinkish purple. The idea here is simple. This tree is closer to the sun. I want to change the color a bit. Notice also that I'm switching from pink to purple and blue to create more variety. I'm adding more dark blue under the snow. At the bottom where the pine tree transitions to the snowy hill, I'm adding cobald blue. And again, with a big flat brush, I'm softening the edges for the third tree, I'm starting with an even warmer shade, this time with a touch of yellow, creating more of a red color to give the impression of worm light falling on the branches. The first layer under trees on the left side is finished. Now let's move on to the right hand side. Here the colors are warm. I'm starting with an orange mix of Windsor yellow, deep and permanent. Again, using similar brush strokes and keeping in mind a general image of a pine tree. I'm trying to create the shape of the tree. We can be more creative here On this side, these trees are more in the distance, we are creating just the silhouettes of those trees. We don't have to be very detailed here. The most important aspect now is the colors and tones we're using. I'm using more orange tones close to the sun and more purple on the other trees on the right. This gives us the impression of trees led by the worm setting sun. While painting those trees, we can also leave some gaps that will be areas where the snow lies on the branches. Here at the bottom, I'm using a big brush to cover this area with a darker tone. Generally, the tone of these trees is light. Don't go too dark. These trees are in the back and they should stay light in tone. Later we will add trees that are closer to us and they will have a much darker tone. Now, leave everything to dry, and in the next step, we will add some details to those trees. 9. Pine Needles: The trees are completely dry. Now, at this stage, we will add more details and dark tones. For this, I'll be using a designer's brush size too. You can also use a rigger brush, it's very similar. Or if you don't have any of those, just a regular round brush with a rigger or designer's brush, it's just easier to create this type of brush strokes. Now with a darker tone, I'm painting lots of short brush strokes to create an impression of pine needles. This adds a nice additional texture and gives us a more convincing image of the pine trees. I'm using the same colors as in the previous layer, but this time it's just a darker tone. In the dark blue areas, I'm using a darker tone of panes gray. If there is purple, I'm using a darker mix of panes gray with permanent rose on the trees that are closest to the sun. I'm using more orange, a mix of Windsor yellow, deep, and permanent rose here on the trees on the right. I'm also trying to imagine branches covered with snow, leaving gaps to suggest that snow again, we're creating just an impression each of our trees will be different. But I want you to get an idea of how we can tackle a subject like this. Of course, there are many more ways we could paint this more or less realistically, but I think this is an easy to follow way that will give us a nice result. We will finish this part at this stage, and in the next part we will move on to paint the snow. 10. Snow Shadows: Painting the snow will not be a difficult task. But I want to first draw your attention to a few ideas that we want to keep in mind. First of all, something that I like to call pockets. Take a look at those areas, those are the areas that I call pockets. In those areas, we have trees or grass poking from the snow. If we add this type of shadow, which is very easy to create, we can create those nice pockets for those objects. It looks really nice if there was very deep snow on the ground and those objects we're poking through that snow. The second idea is the shadows in general. If we have two objects like 2 stones and one is behind another, the one behind will have a shadow. For example, here we have 2 stones and there is a river bank behind. The river bank has a shadow which is darker at the bottom and gets lighter towards the top. The shadows are also close to the bridge, because the bridge casts a shadow on the snow. Finally, we can add some shadows on the hills. The third idea I would like you to keep in mind is the highlights. The top part of the rocks and some parts of the snow on the left should stay light. We will also use white guash to add some highlights, but keep this idea in mind, especially when painting the rocks. Let's start from the right hand side. This time I'm wetting the ill with clean water and then using some blues. I'm painting the shadows. I'm also creating those pockets in places which I left to unintentionally. I just missed those areas so I can use them to create those pockets. Or if we look at it from a different perspective, those are snow drifts. I'm using different shades of blues and purples. I'm not covering the entire area with those blue tones because I want to keep those yellowish orange areas as areas that catch the sunlight here behind the rocks, I'm painting a darker shadow. And with a clean dump brush, I'm quickly softening the upper edge. I just noticed that we can create a clear division between the left heel and the background. I'm wetting that area and I'm adding a slightly darker blue tone to create that distinction between the two planes on the hill itself. I'm adding some random brush strokes following the direction of the hill. Those may be some shadows on the snow. I'm wetting the left side of the hill and I'm adding more blues and purples in that area. My idea now is also to simplify this whole area and create a few pockets here and there. I also want to add more shadows on the river bank behind the rocks. For purples, I'm mixing permanent rose, cobalt blue, and a tiny touch of Windsor yellow deep. To mute down the purple hue, I don't want to use two bright colors to bright purple. I think the purple should be slightly muted down. I'm adding more shadows on the E, and I'm adding more color to the rocks. The rocks need to be dark. Now, while painting the shadows on the snow, remember to leave the upper edge lighter for highlights. Darken the reflection of the rocks in the water. The water in those areas dried quite pale, so we can add another dark blue layer to enhance the dark reflection. Repeat the process on the right river bank, paint a shadow on each rock covered with snow. Remembering to leave that upper edge light, there are still a few rocks on the left and under the bridge. I will paint the ones under the bridge of camera. When you finish adding the shadows to the snow, leave everything in. The next, we will paint more trees and grasses. 11. Trees and Grasses: I'll begin this part with a brush size six. We need a very dark tone now to paint the trees. I'm using pines gray as my base, but I'm also mixing it with a touch of burnt sienna which will neutralize that bluish hue of the pines gray. Now use this dark mix to paint the tree trunks of the pine tree and trees in front of the pine trees. Start by painting the main trunk of the pine tree, suggested in a few places between the branches. Now using the same tone paint the main trunk of the tree in front. It doesn't have to be perfectly straight or have super straight edges. Because it's a tree, it may have some more natural imperfections. There is one more smaller tree on the left, paint that main trunk as well. Try to make the upper part thinner and make it thicker at the bottom. Now I'm going to switch to a designer's brush. If you have it or you have a rigger brush, I highly suggest using it too, because it will be much easier to create natural looking branches with this type of brush, the same dark tone, and add branches to the trees. Start from the main trunk and use natural looking lines to paint branches. These are quite thin lines. We don't want to create too thick branches in this tree, but if you happen to create a too thick branch, don't worry because later we will cover them with snow and a few branches on the other trees. We can also add one more tree on the hill. Here I'm using a brush size six. I'm picking up some oranges on the side of the bristles and holding my brush at an angle almost parallel to the paper. I'm using the side of the bristles to add some illusion of last foliage. The paint is I'm using a dry brush technique. The bristles are just slightly dump when we wrap the surface of the paper with it. It will leave those natural marks with the texture of the paper. Back to my designer's brush. I'm using a dark tone to paint some bushes on the hill. Those twigs will be covered with snow. They are heavy and bent under the weight of the snow. Now with a brush six, I'm using blues again, to paint the pockets at the bottom of the tree trunks. I'm simply applying the paint in that area using the wet on dry technique. And then I'm quickly rinsing my brush. And with a cleaner brush, I'm softening the upper edge. I thought we could also add some high grasses here just to add more interest to the scene. Paint clumps of grasses now, or even single grass blades here and there. And then paint the pockets. Now we have to repeat the same process on the right hand side, start by mixing an orange, red blend of permanent rose and Windsor yellow. Deep. Use a brush, say six, to paint the first three with that red color. Paint the main trunk first and then add smaller branches. We're using this red because the tree catches a lot of light from the sun while the red is still wet. Use the dark blue, paints gray, and drop it on the right side of the tree trunk. This way will create a shadow. Let these dark colors spread in the red and create natural shapes. Pull that dark blue downwards to the bottom of the trunk and finish it with a snow pocket. Now switch to a rigger brush or a designer's brush. And using that dark blue at smaller branches, you may want to practice the shapes of those branches first on a piece of paper. It's actually interesting that if you use quicker movements of the brush, the branches will look better. At least that's my experience. If I'm trying to paint them slowly and carefully, they don't look as well as I would like them to look. But if I make a quick brush stroke, they look better to my taste. Try what works better for you. Now mix paints gray with permanent rose to create a nice deep purple. And use the color to paint the tree trunks on the right, start with a tree trunk of the pine tree. Make sure to skip the branches covered with snow. We don't want to paint one straight line because some branches are also in front of the tree and they hide the tree trunk. Here we have some trees in front, they don't have any foliage. So we can paint the entire shape from top to bottom. Try to paint the ones in the back with a lighter tone and the ones in the front with a dark tone. This will create a sense of distance. Now, again, with the side of the bristles and the purple color, I'm adding some texture to the trees. I'm switching to a bigger brush. I'm trying to use a quite dry brush so that the paint could create natural texture in contact with the textured surface of the paper. I'm creating this texture in the lower part of the trees in the distance. I think that's enough here, we don't have to paint any more details. Those suggestions are convincing enough. Paint more pockets of the snow at the bottom of the trees. And add some high grasses if you like. Just as we did on the left hand side. Now we can take a little break, and when you're ready, we can move on to paint the bridge. 12. Bridge: We'll paint the bridge in three stages. In the first stage, we will apply the basic layer on the entire bridge. In the second stage, we will paint the bricks. In the third stage, we will add the snow. We'll add the snow in the next part of the tutorial in the next video. Now we will focus only on the bridge itself. Start by preparing a lot of paints, gray and some cobbled blue. Begin applying a light tone of the mix using a brush size six and a watery paint consistency. Use the wet on dry technique. We want to cover the entire bridge with color, leaving the upper edge unpainted. There is snow and we want to leave it unpainted for now. We also want to introduce some variety in color when you're working on the bridge. Add some red here and there. It will turn brown in contact with paints gray while the paint is still wet. Dropping darker tones here and there To introduce some tonal variety at this stage, we don't have to apply a very dark tone, it should be a middle tone. In the next stage, we will paint darker bricks. The right side of the bridge will be darker. I'm using a darker tone there already, but still I know it will dry paler. When you cover the whole bridge with color, leave it to dry completely. Let it dry naturally for about 5 minutes. And then use a herd dryer to speed up the drying time. Now with the magic of editing, the bridge is already dry. We can start the second stage, which is adding the bricks. I'll be using a brush size six for this stage. First, pick up a dark paints gray and paint the shadow under the bridge. That arc shape needs to be darker at the bottom and a bit lighter in the upper part. Then use paints gray, maybe with a touch of burned CNI if you like, or red. And start painting the bricks. The bridge is very old and those are not perfectly shaped bricks. In fact, in my imagination, it is built with rocks. The shapes that we are creating now don't have to be perfect. But if you like, you could also use a small flat brush and paint perfectly straight bricks. It would be easier to do with a flat brush. I will stick with the round brush. In the construction of the bridge, we can see an arc shape with pretty similar bricks forming that arc shape. Try to paint those square shapes. Now continue painting the bricks. We don't even have to paint every single brick. We may also just suggest some bricks and leave some gaps for our imagination. When the bricks are there, I think I need to darken the shadow under the bridge, so I'm applying one more layer there. Finally, just a few darker spots and shadows and the Brigs are ready. Nothing too difficult now. I thought that I will wet the water under the bridge and I will drop in a little bit more dark paint to create a more defined reflection of the bridge in the water. This is a very subtle change, but I think it's necessary. And with that, we can finish this stage. In the next and the final stage, we will finish the painting by adding the snow. 13. Snow: For this step, we need white gash. I'll be using Windsor, Newton's designers gash. I'm squeezing a little bit of the paint on a smaller palette. Now with a brush size six or smaller, use white gash to paint the snow on the branches of the trees. Play around with the water to paint ratio. Know that with Gh it can be tricky. If we use too much water, the Gah will dry transparent. We want it to be opaque white because we needed to be visible. The consistency should be quite thick. I'm not adding a lot of water, just a tiny bit, just to be able to move the paint this way. The paint is really white when I apply it. Now cover the branches and the trunks with this white snow. I'm trying to imagine where the snow would lie on the branches, the upper part of each branch would be white on the tree trunk. I'm using slightly drier paint because this way I can create an additional texture which reminds me of the bark of the tree. I'm switching now to a designer's because it has that nice sharp point. And it's which I think will be better for this. We can add the snow wherever we like. We can cover the grass blades with it, add it on the branches, cover the branches. Or even create new grass blades with just white suggesting frozen plants. I'm also adding the white quash on the highlights on the rocks here on the left river bank in front of the bridge. We can create a simple bush with a dark paints gray. We can first paint some simple branches and then cover them with white snow. Now when it comes to the bridge, we will use white gash to create a snow effect. Apply it in between the bricks and at the top of the bridge. Try to create a natural look. Don't paint a white grid. Use natural shapes, random dots. Imagine how real snow would look like here. I'm also adding some frozen grasses on the right. We also can't forget about the trees on the right hand side. I think the snow here looks particularly beautiful. Also here you can see the nice texture on the tree bark where I used a dryer paint to make use of the texture of the paper. Finally, as a cherry on top, we can add falling snow. I'm first testing on a darker paper. If the size of the splatters isn't too big, I'm using a brush six here and I think it's perfect. Now, load your brush with white and holding another brush in the second hand. Tap the brush with the paint, the other brush. This will cause the paint to spatter in the form of tiny dots on the paper. This way we can create a nice effect of falling snow. We can add more or less of it depending on our vision. I think I want to add more of those dots in the areas with trees, but I will spatter it on the entire painting. Of course, this step is optional. You don't have to do this if you don't like it. With that, I think we can call this painting finished. We can sign our painting. I will use a tiny spotter brush for signing. I always use one of the colors from the painting and sign my paintings in the bottom right corner. Now we can remove the masking tape and reveal a nice clean border around. I'll now leave it to dry overnight. Tomorrow I will cut off the edges with staples, leaving just a white border around. To make the framing easier, I decide to frame it. I must admit that it was really enjoyable to paint. I love the colors and the atmosphere. Winter is my favorite season next to spring. The mood that the snow creates is one of its own. Thank you very much for watching and happy painting by.