 |
|
 |
Intro:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| Fresh snow that's not too dry is ideal for making a snowman--it practically packs itself. If your snow is a little old and has icy clumps in it, these clumps may adhere to your snowballs. If it does and your snowballs start to take on lumpy shapes, you can either scrape off the bumps or pack snow around them to smooth out the trouble spots. |
|
The classic snowman is made out of three balls of packed snow stacked one on top of another: a big one for the base and proportionally smaller ones for the body and head. Make the base. Grab two big handfuls of snow and pack them together into a ball in your hands. The rounder you make this first kernel, the better--any irregularities in its shape will grow along with the base as you build it. Start rolling the ball through the snow. Snow will cling to the original snowball, making it bigger--this is the famous "snowball effect." Turn the ball in different directions as you roll it, so that all parts of the ball come in contact with the snow. This will make it grow symmetrically all around the sphere. If you roll it so that one of the ball's equators is making more contact with the snow, it will become oval instead of round, and it will also be harder to roll. Make the base no bigger than about 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter. The size of your base determines the height of the snowman: if your base is 3 feet (1 meter) tall, the body will probably be about 2 feet (60 centimeters) in diameter, and the head about 1 foot (30 centimeters). When combined, these will make a life-size snowman, approximately 6 feet (2 meters) tall. Make the body and the head. Shape the body and head balls the same way you made the base, and sized accordingly (the body being roughly two-thirds of the base size, the head approximately one-third the base). The body should be small enough to sit comfortably on top of the base, and the head should fit on top of the body. The one trick about the body ball is making sure it's not too big and heavy to lift onto the base when you assemble the snowman--or, if it is, that you have enough help or tools (like a makeshift ramp) to get it up there.
|
|
Shape the snowballs
