Landscapes: Winterscapes

One of my favorite things to do is to bundle up and go out to paint a snow study. Painting with all of the shades of winter white is very difficult at first. The whitest white is always snow in highlight, a rule I had to constantly repeat to myself while doing winter paintings. When I started painting in plein air using oil paints it was 1988. In the early 90s I headed out in the deep snow in the dead of winter first thing in the morning for several years. The paint would stiffen up with the cold and so did I! I learned to paint deep snow in those years and had to use my landscape knowledge to create the land through shapes. What was underneath that snow to make that mound? Why are those branches touching the ground? How can I make the scene sparkle like the millions of crystals in my vision?