‘Winter Birch Trees’. Mixed media on 17×11″ wood

Today’s painting – a winter landscape on wood panel.

I experimented with this as I went along, adding marble dust for texture and lots of work with a palette knife. I’m quite happy with the colours, which are maybe veering a bit towards Bruegel-like with greenish tones in the sky, and touches of intense warmth here and there.

This painting will be the largest in a series I’m painting for a pre-Christmas show at the beginning of December (details tbc). I’ll be creating a series of 10 or so winter landscapes on wood.

On the subject of wintery colours I’ll leave you with Bruegel’s winter masterpiece – Hunters in the Snow (or The Homecoming). It’s the most popular art subject for Christmas cards for obvious reasons! The colours and composition are beautiful, but I also love the fact it gives a sense of ordinary life in the 16th century (though art historians have suggested it’s an idealised portrait even for its time). The hunters haven’t been successful, but you can see people playing on the ice, two women walking carefully on the edge…