Watercolour painting is a relaxing and enjoyable activity for the whole family to do together. Especially when the festival season is approaching. Creating your own watercolour Christmas cards to give to relations and friends is a wonderfully personal and heartfelt gesture that makes them feel special. In doing so, you will soon realise that there is also immense joy in engaging children or grandchildren in the task and spending creative time together. 

This snowmen Christmas card is one of the designs in the “All You Need To Paint..” Christmas cards watercolour painting kit. In the kit, we have already drawn the design for you on Saunders Waterford watercolour paper, so you can start painting straight away, with the brushes and the three A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour paints, supplied. We want you to know how easy it is, so we have reproduced the step-by-step instruction below.

So, to start this family painting project, you will need Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red and Phthalocyanine Blue (Green Shade) watercolour paints, watercolour painting brushes for each (including a fine one for detail work), watercolour paper (in the text below, I talk about why I chose the art materials I have used). Obviously, these are all supplied in our kit along with two other Christmas card designs and three blank ones.

The snowmen design is simple, as you can see in figure 1, and can be easily drawn onto the blank cards included in the kit, for the other family members joining you for this piece of creative fun.

Figure 1: The snowmen design can be easily drawn on the blank cards in the “All you need to paint..” Christmas Cards watercolour painting kit.

All the different colours that go into painting this cute design are mixed from the three watercolours listed above. Figure 2 shows the primary, secondary and tertiary hues that are possible.

Figure 2: Mixing chart showing the hues possible when mixing the three A J Ludlow Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red and Phthalocyanine (Phthalo) Blue (Green Shade) watercolour paints.

Using the three single pigmented A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour paints, will help keep the painting bright and giving it a cheerful look, making the snowmen look even more cute! 

So let us get started:



Step 1: To start, mix a little bit of Cadmium Yellow with dilute Cadmium Red to make orange and use this colour to paint the carrot-noses of the snowmen;

Step 2: Use Cadmium Red to paint snowmen’s hats and scarves;

Step 3: Mix Cadmium Red with Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) and a little bit of Cadmium Yellow to get a strong black colour. Use this colour to paint the pieces of coal used for the snowmen’s eyes, mouths, buttons and their twig-hands;

Step 4: Wet the background with clean water;

Step 5: Dilute the black mixed earlier to get a bluish grey colour, use this colour to paint the background;

Step 6: Use a stronger bluish grey colour to paint trees in the background;

Step 7: Splash onto the background, some clean water to create snowflakes using the two brushes as shown in the photograph above;