As with most of the other paintings after the drawing was done (on a stretched piece of Bockingford 250lb watercolour paper) the first thing to paint was sky and background. For this painting, the sky was a simple wash (darkening slightly towards the top) and the background hill while mainly covered in snow the lines of trees, stone walls and their shadows were painted but keeping the tones light. While painting the above I was careful not to paint over the light areas of the trees that were to be painted next.

This and the next two stages demonstrate how I painted the winter trees. The first stage was to paint the lightest colour/color or range of lightest colours/colors of each tree, while leaving areas of branches/trunk with snow on i.e. white. The main objective is to get the balance of the each tree correct (weight of branches) as I worked across. The green ivy was painted as a wet-into-wet wash, likewise the more distant trees just to the right of the church tower but with some branches protruding from it.

This next stage was to paint the middle tones of the trees, again a range of colours/colors used to achieve this, and concentrating on the larger branches of the tree. Again leaving areas of the underlying wash to show through to start building form into the trucks/branches.

The ivy was again given a wet-into-wet wash of the correct mid tone using a range of greens with areas left to create form. The middle tones (leaving lighter areas) of the church tower were then painted being careful to get the stonework correct.

The right hand bank behind the bridge was painted in a few washes. First all the darks of the banks, those areas not covered by snow and along the edge of the river.

The shadow was then painted over the whole area but leaving clear patches where the sunlight caught the snow.

This stage was all about painting the wonderful stone bridge. To ensure the lines of snow on some of the stonework I masked these before painting the bridge. The first wash was the underlying light colour/color of the stone followed by the middle tone (leaving areas of the light colour/color) as the detail of the stone work was built up - at times painting one stone at a time (for example around the arch). Last came the dark tones of the bridge and as with the middle tone the detail was built up.

Before painting the shadows cast from the trees (to right of the picture frame) I painted the bushes (using light to dark washes) to the left of the bridge and the strong dark shadows under the arches. The cast shadows were painted and the edges softened with plain water.

The last section to paint was the foreground bank of snow. Like Stage Four all the darker areas not covered by snow were painted first and this was followed by two washes for the cast shadow. Being careful not to paint areas of snow catching sunlight and working from the top forward, the first shadow wash was a wet-into-wet wash with slight variations to the colour/color. The second shadow wash was added to show the slightly darker cast shadows from the trees to the right of the picture, softening the edges with a damp brush. The last elements to paint were the dried grass/vegetation using Naples Yellow (being opaque) and Raw Sienna.

The colour/color variation on the images is due to the different light conditions when the photo's were taken.