Snow, Lake District

Snow, Lake District. Copyright 2010. Theresa Evans

I often nip upto the Lake District at weekends with my husband to walk, photograph and sketch. The landscape is so beautiful and never looks the same twice - even in the same day!

I painted this from photographs and notes I made last Winter (when the UK was under snow for weeks!) on Arches  watercolour paper in mixed media ~ watercolour, gouache and some oil pastel for texture in the snow.

When I'm out walking, I try to keep notes and small sketches in my pocket size Moleskine to remind me about the atmosphere, sounds and colours. My writing tends to be a mixture of descriptive sentences and random colour notes. I also take photographs which I like to have for a starting point to composition and also reference of shapes in the land etc.

Here's a note from my sketchbook;

"It had been snowing heavily all morning but suddenly it eased. A ray of light broke through the cloud cover lighting the snow and making it deliciously pink with lovely blue shadows .... a bird flew past, calling out into the hills ... "

Size: 22" x 14"