Frosty morning
There is something magical about frost. It covers the ground like a thin white veil and turns all the bright colours to beautiful greys. It shimmers and sparkles with the first rays of sunshine then disappears and quickly melts away. Frost doesn’t have a colour as such. It is not as thick and opaque as the white snow, and it isn’t as smooth and reflective as water.
In a way, painting frost is a bit like painting a landscape covered with a semi-transparent light grey layer; the colours of the grass, leaves and flowers are still showing, but their saturation and intensity are diminished. Areas still covered in frost are often in the shade, and therefore often contain cool, muted tones, which can contrast nicely with bright areas in the full sun.
Painting frost is a great way to learn to control the temperature of your colours (warms or cools) and their intensity (saturated or muted) so I hope you’ll join me in this month’s demonstration and explore it for yourself.
Clean vs dirty colours
Often, during the first half of a
