FINISHING · EASY

Snow

Snow is the one thing you can add in an hour that completely transforms a nativity. It’s also the quickest way to spot a beginner, because most snow mistakes come down to one thing: putting it everywhere, in pure white.

Where snow really settles

This is the most important part of this page, and it’s free: just look out the window on a snowy day.

It builds up It’s absent
On horizontal surfaces: roofs, ledges, copings, stumps On vertical surfaces: walls, façades, trunks
At the foot of obstacles, on the downwind side Under roof overhangs, under dense trees
In hollows and ditches On ridges exposed to the wind
On the horizontal branches of fir trees Against heated walls — a strip of bare ground always shows at the foot of a lived-in house

So, three things to remember:

  • Let rock show through in patches. An all-white cliff doesn’t look like a cliff anymore.
  • Clear the paths, or at least add dark tracks down the middle. People have been walking there.
  • Leave a strip of bare ground about ⅜ inch wide around each house. That one detail does more for realism than any fancy material.
Where snow really settlesrock in patcheson the roofwall base cleareddrift downwindrutsOn horizontal surfaces, never on walls or under overhangs.

The color of snow

It’s never white.

In the shade, it’s clearly bluish, because it reflects the sky. In warm light, it’s cream. Where it’s melted and refrozen, it’s gray and see-through. Where people have walked, it’s dirty.

In practice, always add a touch of ultramarine blue to your snow mix, and save pure white for the few ridges that catch the light. Snow that’s all bright white looks flat and harsh.

Snow is never whiteIn the shadebluishIn warm lightcreamRefrozengrayTrampleddirtyRidgespure white, rarelyAlways a touch of ultramarine blue in the snow paste.

Materials

  • Baking soda — the finest white grit, and the cheapest
  • Fine premixed spackling
  • White PVA glue
  • Matte titanium white acrylic, and a touch of ultramarine blue
  • Marble dust or glass microbeads, for accents
  • Clear glue-varnish or resin, for ice
  • A flexible putty knife, a natural sponge, a stiff brush
  • A fine sieve — a tea strainer will do

Four methods

  1. Baking soda on glue — the finest

    Spread straight white glue over the area, sift baking soda on top, pat it down gently with your palm, then blow off the extra. It’s very fine and naturally a little bluish. Don’t use it near water, though: baking soda dissolves. See the fountain.

  2. Snow paste — the most durable

    Mix one part spackle, half a part white glue, a dab of white acrylic and the tiniest bit of blue, until it’s like thick cream. Spread it with a putty knife, then dab it with a damp sponge for texture. It’s the best choice for a nativity you pack up and bring out every year: it stays put and won’t get vacuumed up by accident.

  3. Marble dust — for accents

    Sprinkle it on the wet snow paste, just on the ridges that will catch the light. It sparkles a little. Go easy: snow that sparkles everywhere looks like tinsel, not a winter scene.

  4. Melting snow — for transitions

    Never leave a hard edge where the snow stops. Thin the snow paste by half and drag it out with a stiff brush until it’s see-through, letting more and more ground show. Five minutes, and the snow no longer looks like a rug thrown down.

Four methodsBaking sodaon glue, siftedthe finestSnow pastespackling + ½ gluethe most durableMarble duston the ridgesaccentsMelting snowthinned paste, dragged outtransitionsNever baking soda near the fountain: it dissolves.

Ice, icicles, drifts

  • Ice on a puddle or trough: a drop of clear gloss medium left to dry flat, with a little thin white dabbed in the middle. Real ice isn’t clear in the center.
  • Icicles: pull a thread of hot glue to a point along a ledge, snip it once it cools, then add a light coat of very thin white. Put them under roof edges and gutters on the north side. Four or five are enough for the whole nativity.
  • Drifts: thicker snow paste, built up in a crescent shape against something, with a sharp edge on the windy side and a gentle slope on the other. A drift is always lopsided. That’s what makes it look different from a pile.
  • Footprints: press a rounded tip into the wet paste in two uneven lines along a path, then add a very thin gray wash in the prints. It’s the detail that shows people live there.

What doesn’t work

  • Cotton batting and cotton balls. They’re fuzzy, they collect dust, and under low light you can see every fiber. It looks like a store window display.
  • Spray-can snow. It doesn’t come off, it turns yellow, it smells like chemicals for weeks, and it lands perfectly evenly, which is the one way real snow never falls.
  • Glitter. Way too big for the scale: a 1/32-inch speck of glitter becomes a 1-inch crystal next to a 3-inch figure.
  • Salt and sugar. The crystals are square and shiny, nothing like snow, and they soak up moisture and clump within a few weeks.
  • Flour. It gets moldy and attracts bugs.
What doesn’t workBatting, cottonvisible fibersSpray canyellows, uniformGlittertoo coarseSalt, sugarclumpsFlourmoldsA 1/32-inch speck of glitter becomes a 1-inch crystal at the scale of the figures.

Snow and light

Here’s why a snowy nativity looks so magical: snow reflects light everywhere, so even the tiniest light creates atmosphere.

Aim for a blue winter night: very faint, slightly cool light from the top of the backdrop, the snow catching it, and a single warm window at 2,200 K. The contrast between the blue snow and the orange window does all the work.

Two things to watch:

  • Turn the overall light down more than you think. Snow reflects a lot, so light that seems dim on a dirt landscape is already bright on snow.
  • Avoid light from the front. It flattens the snow and wipes out the blue shadows that give it shape. Always light it from a low side angle.

Details in lighting, and how it applies to a style in the mountain nativity.

The blue night and a single warm windowfaint, cool ambient light,from the top of the backdropwindow at 2,200 Kthe only warm pointTurn the ambient light down more than usual, and light from a low angle, never from the front.