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How To Paint A Snowman At Night

Learn how to paint this adorable snowman painting with a night sky background! 

This painting is super easy and can be customized with different colors and decor such as a different color scarf or hat.

It’s also a great painting you can do with the kids!

The background of this design utilizes the color “Payne’s Grey” which is similar to black only it’s lighter. It reminds me of chalkboard color.

If you don’t have Payne’s gray you can use Mars Black or Ivory Black or even mix a tiny bit of white in the black to create that lighter look in the black. 

If you have a painting you’ve messed up on you can easily paint over it with the Payne’s Grey (or black) to do this snowman painting!

I also used a white Posca paint pen in this snowman painting. The designs on the scarf and some of the smaller snowflakes were easily done with this pen! 

Enjoy and happy painting!!

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Materials

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Yield: One 11” x 14” acrylic canvas painting

How To Paint A Snowman At Night

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Learn how to paint a snowman at night in this easy to follow tutorial. This is a great one you can do with the kids as well!

Active Time 2 hours

Total Time 2 hours

Difficulty Easy

Materials

• 11 x 14 canvas
• Acrylic Paint 
• Brushes
• White Chalk
• Tooth Brush
• White Paint Pen

Colors

• Cad Red Medium (or Pyrrole Red)
• Cad Red Light (or Cad Orange Hue)
• Light Blue Violet
• Deep Violet (scarf color can be customized)
• Titanium White 
• Mars Black
• Burnt Umber 
• Payne’s Grey (use to paint background. Sub mars Black if you don’t have Payne’s grey) 

Brush Sizes

• 3/4” wash 
• 12 Bright
• 4 Round 
• 10/0 Liner

Instructions

1. Paint the canvas Payne’s Grey.
2. Draw the snowman circles with chalk.
3. Paint the snowman circles white
4. Paint the shadow on the snow with light blue violet.
5. Paint the snowflakes in the sky.
6. Paint the scarf and hat.
7. Paint the eyes, nose, buttons and arm.
8. Decorate the scarf and add highlights to the coal and nose,

Notes

This design can easily be done on all sizes of canvases!

Recommended Products

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• 
  Uni Posca Fine Marker, White (PC3M.1)
• 
  DecoArt Payne's Grey Americana Premium Acrylic Paint Tube 2.5oz

Color Palette

Apple Barrel

If you want to do this with the Apple Barrels see my color suggestion chart below.

The only difference may be the Paynes gray but you can try mixing gray with the black to lighten the black for the background up. 

Directions At A Glance

Video For Snowman Painting

Step By Step Directions

1. Paint the canvas Payne’s Grey 

First you will need to paint an entire canvas with Payne’s Grey. I recommend using a large wash brush for this step.

Paint a nice, even coat. I used the DecoArt Americana Premium Payne’s Grey.

2. Draw the snowman with chalk 

Next use a piece of white chalk to draw the snowman.

The bottom snowball is large with “one hand width” of space left on the bottom.

Measure about a hand width and make a mark with your chalk. 

Then make another mark at about the halfway point up the canvas. 

Then connect these two marks and form a large circle.

Next draw the smaller circle (head) so that it slightly overlaps the larger circle. 

3. Paint the first layer on snowman with titanium white

Load a 3/4″ wash brush in titanium white. 

Fill in both of the circles with the white. Paint in circular strokes forming the circle. 

I started with the top and then painted the bottom.

Then I did a second coat and started at the bottom and then did the top.

Essentially the top needs to look like it’s overlapping the bottom, which we will define in the next step with “shading”.

4. Add light blue violet for shading

Do not rinse the white off your brush. 

To do the shading, add a little bit of light blue violet to your brush.

Start at the lower right of the snowball and paint a curved stroke so that it blends with the white on your brush (and also the white on the canvas that isn’t dry yet).

Blend it back in with the white so the light blue violet gets lighter and turns back to white as your work your way to the upper left part of the circle.

You may add more white to your brush to help with the blending. 

Do the same with the top circle. When you blend this part of the circle, make it so the top circle is overlapping the bottom.  

Light blue violet is blended in with the white only on the lower right side of both of the circles. 

5. Paint the snow and snowflakes

For the snowflakes I did a combo of the 10/0 liner brush, the toothbrush and a paint pen.

First start with the liner brush (or the paint pen if you prefer) and paint titanium white snowflakes around the sky. 

Paint little dots representing snow.

You can do this by stamping the back of your paint brush handle.

Then use your toothbrush to flick little specks of snow all over. 

Tip: with the toothbrush it sometimes helps if you wet it first (then pat it dry so it’s not dripping) and load it with the white. Always test out the splatter away from the canvas first to make sure it won’t drip all over your canvas. 

Then I took a paint pen and drew on some more snowflakes.

The paint pen really helps with this step because you have more control of the intricate lines.

6. Paint the scarf

For the scarf I used a 3/4″ wash brush and deep violet.

Paint about the width of the brush, the scarf in between the head and the body. 

Then I switched to a #12 bright brush to paint the parts of the scarf hanging down.

You can also add a bit of white into this purple to make it a bit brighter (simply load a little white on your brush that already has the deep violet on it). 

To do the “frill” on the scarf, use mars black and the full width of the 12 bright brush to drag down the strokes slightly using the full width of the brush (make them kind of dry and feathery).

You can also use a round brush for this step to paint the little lines hanging down. 

7. Paint the hat

Next use a 12 bright brush and titanium white to paint the bottom of the Santa hat.  

Paint it so that it overlaps the head and curves around. 

The shape of the white part of the Santa hat is sort of an oblong rectangle. 

Then (optional) you can do a little “shading” with the mars black.

Dip a tiny bit of black into the brush that already has the white on it. Blend it in slightly on the bottom of the hat. 

Next rinse your brush and load it in cad red medium.

Paint the top portion of the hat. You may need a few coats for this cadmium red because it’s rather translucent. 

Then paint the triangular point of the hat hanging down.

8. Paint the buttons and eyes

For all the coal circles I used mars black and a #4 round brush.

I did the two eyes and three buttons but did not do the mouth yet. 

9. Paint the nose base layer

Then with a #12 bright brush, I painted the nose titanium white.

This is because the orange would not be opaque enough to show up over the black.

When this white dries, I painted orange back over it. 

10. Paint the mouth

For the mouth, paint mars black circles (under the nose) with the round brush.

11. Paint the arm

The arm was painted with a round brush and the colors: burnt umber and titanium white.

Basically load your brush in the burnt umber and a little bit of titanium white.

This helps to lighten the brown and help it show up on the black.

**Oh and also I painted a circle on the tip of the hat with a round brush and titanium white. 

12. Paint the nose orange

Then if the white part of the nose is dry, paint it over with cadmium red light hue (or cad orange). 

13. Add highlight to coal and nose

Using a 10/0 liner and titanium white, paint the highlight on the left side of all the coal circles.

Also paint a little white line on the top of the nose.

Then (optional) use mars black and the 10/0 liner to paint the black lines on the carrot. 

14. Decorate the scarf

For the scarf I used a white paint pen due to the intricate designs.

If you don’t have a paint pen, you can use your 10/0 liner and titanium white. I did a pattern of different kinds of lines. 

15. Add some shading to the hat (optional) 

Then (optional) I went back over the white circle on the tip of the Santa hat and added a bit of mars black mixed with titanium white on the brush to create some light shading on the bottom.

Finished!

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