A few of my paintings capture a very specific time and place. "Fallen Tree" is one of those paintings. In March this year we had a death in the family. One afternoon we found ourselves on Cannock Chase for a walk on our way home. Out of nowhere the weather closed in for a while - the snow fell and the wind blew as we walked with no-one else in sight. It must have lasted no more than 20 minutes and then the skies cleared. That short time was strangely magical as pale light shone through the snow highlighting the silver birches and the varied colours of the ground in silence.
I knew there was at least one painting in it and my first attempt was a watercolour in my sketchbook. I like the misty background and the muted colours. The trees create the three dimensional image as there are no shadows. I was also pleased with how well the snowfall worked.
The canvas for Fallen Tree was 30cm high and 101cm wide - much wider than I've worked on before - but I thought a stretched version would be interesting with the verticles of the trees breaking up the image. The only signifcant additions I made were the fallen tree as the distant subject matter, and a hint ot yellow light just peeping round the clouds. I wanted the space to be light and airy so I painted fewer trees.
Although the sketch was taken from a reference photograph the acryclic painting is a memory painting. I am trying to capture the mood and the light on the day. Interestingly I can see that I remember the weather as worse than it was judging by the angle of the snow in the wind. I also played with the overlapping of branches and snow 'streaks' to highlight perpective and to pick out interesting shapes.
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