Being an undeveloped broadleaf woodland, Princes Woods contain a wealth of different tree shapes and colours. We automatically think of a wood as being predominantly green, and modern conifer woods undoubtedly are. And even centuries ago, old folk songs, and Robin Hood, inhabited the jolly greenwood, but, as painters, we are able to discover the wide range of colours in tree trunks and foliage. This painting illustrates my point, I hope. It was painted outdoors in January, but not in snow. It had snowed a few days earlier but, by the time the three of us set out for our Tuesday morning session, the snow had gone. The day was dull, grey sky, flat lighting and the woods an uninspiring greenish brown mass, apart from the two silver birches. So, using the advantage painters have over photographers, I mentally recreated the scene before me as it might have been a few days earlier, and used a very limited palette of just ultramarine and burnt sienna to paint the birches in a more attractive, unified image. It certainly caused some puzzled looks and comments from a passing group of walkers!