Sharp Frost by the Settings

Oil on Canvas, 14 x 30 inches

I've also entered this larger painting for the Royal Society of Oil Painters (ROI), along with three smaller ones. Having got stung last year by getting nothing accepted, I'm hopeful, but expecting nothing. That way, I won't be too disappointed.....I'm lying...I will!

I don't often do a panoramic shaped painting, but sometimes, the composition demands it, and this was one such examlpe.

I've always loved painting frost, especially with the sun casting shadows and lighting up the silver grass, just melting it into the faintest green. Using my usual suspects of Cadmium Yellow Light, Permanent Rose and Cobalt Blue, with Titanium White, I caked on varying mixes of those three colurs, with my 1" decorator's brush, enjying the thick textures created.

The sheep added plenty of life to an otherwise bland composition, with most of them looking towards the feeder at the extreme right of the picture plane, where Tim Lamb, the sheep farmer (yes, his name's Lamb!) of Settings Farm was coming out of the yard in his Landrover. There's always danger of the eye flying out of the painting here, but the big tree and leaning posts help push the gaze back into the picture to explore the rest of players in the composition, with the increasingly blue tones of the receding trees.