Someone said to me the other day, 'I don't expect you do any painting in winter, what with it not being fit to get out?' Quite the contrary. Although we are still in the grip of winter, it is a time when I love to be out with sketchbook in hand. Whilst rain and snow will quickly ruin a watercolour, winter still provides many opportunities to work outside. It is a season when the whole landscape opens up, revealing subjects that the dense foliage of summer obscures. I love walking in woods, and when people ask me about painting trees, I always suggest to look at them in winter, when their skeletal structures are revealed. What caught my eye here, and made me reach for the brushes, was the central play of light filtering through the trees. I was also attracted by the combination of the sear grasses in the foreground and the blue greys beyond. Warm colours pull forward visually, and cool colours sit back, so this partnership tends to create a sense of distance. This subject was painted on Arches 140lb not paper. And before someone asks, 'well if it's not paper, what is it, then?' - the 'not' refers to the texture of the paper, which has a slight tooth that is not too rough and not too smooth. It may be the coldest time of year, but ironically, winter plays host to the warmest colours of the spectrum. My walk on the edge of the wood this week was enhanced by the sight of ochre grasses, the rusty hues of oak leaf litter and dead bracken, the copper spires of last year's rose bay willow herb, and the madder haze of distant birches. The whole landscape was flushed with a pinkish winter light. The scene was visually warm, even though the temperature was a little above freezing. Detail of a winter wood from my watercolour sketchbook. The warm colours in the foreground are raw sienna, burnt sienna and brown madder alizarin. The birch bark, with its distinctive tiger stripes, has been given a soft sienna wash, a colour effect that seems to be especially noticeable after rain. The pencil work on this piece was added after the watercolour and while the latter was still wet. The effect is to make the pencil rather like a stylus, so instead of the usual grey pencil marks, the result is a darker tone of the underlying colour. Hence the blue edge alongside the birch trunk and the varicoloured marks superimposed over the sienna and madder washes in the foreground. I love using a pencil in this way, but I have to be certain before I draw the line, because drawing into wet pigment renders the pencil work indelible! Winter Wood was painted on 1/8 imperial Canson mi teintes 90lb paper. If winter is really not the season for you, don't despair - We are only at the beginning of February, but the trees are already coming into bud, and it won't be many weeks before they begin to burst into leaf. Then the warm earth colours of the winter wood will disappear, to be replaced by the bright yellow-greens of spring.
This is what I enjoy about the changing seasons - with each turn, the landscape is constantly reinventing itself, and presenting new subjects to paint. So grasp the nettle - if you can find one at this time of year, which is doubtful - wrap up warm, get out there and take a good look at the colours of winter, before they disappear for another year...
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Judith Key
Judith Key is a Norfolk based artist, working in watercolour and pastel. She has exhibited with the Society of Graphic Fine Artists and New English Art Club at the Mall Galleries, London. Her paintings are in collections worldwide. Categories
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May 2018
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