Winter is a really interesting time to paint the landscape, it can often lead you to getting all thoughtful and deep. 😉

Painting sunrises in Oil Paint

It’s impossible to predict how the landscape will look and what you will encounter, when you go out plein air painting, you have to be prepared for anything. Especially the case with sunrises; will there be too much cloud cover, that you don’t see anything at all?

 

All you can do is just turn up prepared, that’s a good attitude to have for lots of things. I was fortunate in this case that there was some cloud cover to provide some beautiful some interesting shapes in the sky. I even had two friendly horses come over to see what I was doing, sadly I had no carrots or apples, I offered to paint them a carrot, but they weren’t impressed by that. 

The sun kept me warm, while it was rising, although it was difficult to paint contre-jour. 

Clouds did eventually cover the sky and what was a beautiful sunrise, illuminating the land before it, soon was covered in grey clouds and fog; which has its own appeal.

Winter Plein Air in Cambridge.

What excites you about painting?
One thing I discovered, this year, that excites me about painting, is that I love subtle colours and winter is a good time to see them. All those subtle violet greys, green greys, and neutrals.

Finished Painting

 It's easy to get caught up in them and to not see the larger tones and colours that make up the bigger masses.

On this cold winters day, last weekend, virtually no one was about, except the occasional dog walker, it was so peaceful. I was drawn to this scene by the subtle violets of the tree trunk and the earthy, yellow ochres of dried rushes.

The days are shorter now and so the clock is ticking when it comes to painting outdoors, but I'm pleased with the outcome and hope I have captured something of the colours and peacefulness.