Winter :The Big Freeze

This weeks subject at AVA was 'Winter'
I have been enjoying playing with textures just recently and thought this might be a good subject to have another go,
I had no source material, so the painting is just an exercise in playing with various tools and a textured paper. Having said that, I do have a picture in my mind of a lovely village that I see from the motorway each time I go north to see my mother. It has a row of buildings, a river  and a great expanse of land in front which is frequently flooded in the winter!

I used a piece of Hahnemuhle 'Cornwall' paper. It is very white and has a distinctive texture to its surface.I prepared the paper with watercolour textured medium and some 'Fix and Grout' paste prior to putting on the wash, but this was a bit of a waste of time as the paper texture was more than good enough for what I needed and added nothing to the final result..

I started by doing a very simple drawing of the buildings in the distance. I then covered the whole sheet with a wash of pale indigo, and blotted out the cloud shapes at the top.
It was then just a case of adding the foliage and bank gradually as the wash dried to get both lost edges and more sharp grasses etc. If an area became too dry, I simply sprayed it with a little water.

I used black Indian Ink as well as watercolour and made liberal use of granulating fluid to increase the textural interest.I used a piece of twig to make most of the marks. It is much looser than using a brush.I used a brush when I needed to drop colour into a wet area of the painting. Being a snow scene, I inevitably used lots of white Acrylic Gouache!
The hardest bit was knowing when to stop.

I am quite pleased with the overall effect. It has the chill factor that I was after, and it was great fun to do