It's a Blizzard!

We've had yet another snowstorm here in Idaho - and another is on the way!

We decided to illustrate our winter weather with this mixed media painted collage. These Downtown Snowstorms were a lot of fun to make, too! 

The first step is to sketch the basic shapes of  your tall downtown buildings on a sheet of 18" x 12" heavy white drawing paper. Draw shorter tall buildings first, starting at the bottom of the page. Then place the taller buildings behind them, leaving a little space at the top for details on the roof. (We'll add them later.) Don't worry about windows or doors or other details yet.

The next step is to paint each building a different color. Use bright colors! We painted with cake temperas, which are like big giant watercolor paints, but thicker!

Now add windows using black paint on a flat brush. Just press the tip of the brush in rows along the sides of the buildings to create patterns. 

Next, simply dry your painting (we use blow driers) and cut them out. 

Now you will glue the buildings to a piece of blue sulfite or construction paper. We used royal blue; navy blue works well too. Go ahead and add details now, such as chimneys, antennas, fancy rooftops, satellite dishes, etc. Use paint or markers.

Add one or more trees with dark brown paint in front of the buildings. We used
liquid temperas. You can paint deciduous trees (no leaves) or conifers (evergreen trees - just add some dark green needles). 

After all of your paint is dry, it's time to add SNOW! Cut and glue snow and icicles (from your white paper scraps) to the tops of the buildings. Then simply paint snow on everything else using thick liquid white tempera paint. 

Last step: splatter! Using thinned liquid white tempera paint and an old toothbrush, splatter snow all over your painting. You can also try tap-splatting, by tapping a long-handled brush loaded with paint against another one. Tap it all over the painting for big splatters - go ahead and make a blizzard!!!