Winter scenery

A digital painting of several people skating on frozen lake at dusk. The sky is dark blue at its darkest, moving into purple and pink before it turns into a light peach at the horizon line, and stars are visible at its darkest. The sky is reflecting in frozen lake, which is clear, but has a few cracks showing. While the ice has some cracks, it is still very thick, as people are skating on it. Of the skaters we find a little girl and boy who are skating independently while a young child is skating with their parents who are holding them up. In the background we find an evergreen forest and snow clad mountains. In the foreground we find both pine trees and naked birch trees frame the lake.
Media: Digital.

Winter landscapes seem to be a bit of a topic of mine, both with northern lights and without. And like many others I seem to paint them closer to winter time, there is just something about the longer nights, and the frost starting to take hold. Though even with winter approaching, it can take a few tries before I land on an image which works really well. This image is really one of them, and if you keep scrolling you’ll see the images which helped me get closer to this image, in chronological order.

A digital painting of a forest during winter. The trees are standing a bit spread out, which consists of a mix of pine spruce and some small bushes. The forest floor is covered with snow. In the background is hill clad in a more dense forest. The image is painted in hues of blue with a yellow highlight.
Media: Digital.

This is where one of the winter forests images began, about twenty days earlier. Though it actually started off with having painted an autumn forest, which had some lovely colours. That said, I cannot fully recall having painted a winter forest just like this before, which added such a calming atmosphere. All in all, I wanted to try to capture the winter feeling, but also paint a more sparse forest. That said, I don’t think the colours were there just yet.

A digital painting of an icy lake at sunset. The lake is slightly cracked, with lines showing in the ice. The shore of the lake is covered with snow and trees are showing in the distance, as well as two trees framing the image. The sky is turning from a light pink to a dark purple with stars showing at the edge.
Media: Digital.

Next winter image up was this one! Instead of focusing on the forest I wanted to focus on the sky, and have it be reflected in an ice covered-lake. The colours are definitely better than the winter forest, but the cracks in the ice didn’t look all that great. I do like the variations of the trees though, as it gives a hint of diversity in tree types, which you can find in a forest.

After completing this I knew that the cracks in the ice didn’t look quite right, and I am a lot more happier with the ice in the first image on this page.

A forest at sunrise, showing birch trees in the foreground and darker evergreens in the back. The snow lie on the ground. The sky shifts from a dark purple with visible stars at the top, to a peachy pink closer to the ground.
Media: Digital.

Next up, a slightly different perspective, and a change in trees in the foreground. I realised that I didn’t want to keep all the trees with dark trunks, as sometimes a forest doesn’t just consist of just pine trees, and evergreens, sometimes deciduous trees are present as well.

A digital painting of a frozen lake at dusk. The sky is dark blue at its darkest, moving into purple and pink before it turns into a light peach at the horizon line, and stars are visible at its darkest. The sky is reflecting in the clear frozen lake, though with a few cracks showing. An evergreen forest surrounds the lake, with snow clad mountains behind them. In the foreground both pine trees and naked birch trees frame the lake.
Media: Digital.

I decided to go in with some darker colours of the sky, and make them a little bit more vibrant. The lines in the lake work a lot better here, but the snow in the foreground might be a tiny bit too far down.