After taping down your sheet of Winsor & Newton acrylic paper to a board, loosely draw out the scene in pencil.

1. As the sky in the reference photo is quite bland and the wood an even spread of detail throughout, make the left-hand area brighter and less dense, both as the source of light and a destination for the path.

2. Add mixing white to your palette, or titanium white thinned down to a milky consistency with water. Take the ¾in. flat brush (or larger) and broadly cover the sky area with this underlayer.

3. Add cadmium yellow to your palette. Dip the corner of the brush into the paint, remembering that a little goes a long way, and roughly a third of the way into your horizon work in a semi-circle of sunlight. Keep blending it at the edges so that it merges with the white.

1. Wash out the brush and squeeze out ultramarine. Take titanium white to the mixing area of your palette and add ultramarine, a bit at a time, until you make light blue.

2. Using broad sweeps, paint the entire ground area, leaving a gap where you have placed your path. Use criss-cross motions with your brush to create random textures and marks.

1. To recreate the effect of backlit trees receding into the distance, first paint an indistinct backdrop then work your way forwards visually.

2. Add emerald (or similar green) to cadmium yellow to make a light, fresh mix. Thin it a little and, with a damp brush, punch in and scrape the green into billowing shapes.

3. Nearer the top of the paper, use zigzags of green to let the sky show through.

4. Use up your green by taking some of it down into the foreground to make random foliage shapes.

1. Now begin adding trunks to the distant trees, which will be lighter than those nearer the foreground. Mix a little burnt sienna into titanium white to make a dark cream colour. With the tip of a damp Round brush paint the tree trunks and branches on the horizon.

2. Apply the body of the path with the same cream colour, and add a touch here and there to suggest dead leaves or ground.

3. For variety, add a touch of ultramarine to the mix and continue to add tree trunks in the same manner. The aim is to create a random latticework of marks that suggest a dense woodland.

1. For the next layer of depth, add a little white to burnt sienna to make a terracotta hue. With a medium-sized flat brush, paint the tree trunks and branches of the trees in the mid-distance using the same techniques as before.

2. Dab this brown onto the lower parts of the path to suggest lumps and bumps.

3. Again, add a little ultramarine to the mix to create a greyer hue and continue to paint more trees.

1. To help ground the trees, wiggle some of the grey colour at the base of the trunks as a shadow.

2. Next, you’ll need a thicker consistency of the green foliage mix. Add emerald into cadmium yellow to create a fresh green. Take a damp, medium-sized flat, or Round, brush and thickly punch in the foliage of the canopy. Follow the lines of your branches or make bold marks in a series of horizontal layers to create the impression of a broken canopy of leaves. Let areas of the background show through to retain depth.

3. With the edge of the flat brush, or the point of the Round, use the same green to paint bluebell leaves in the undergrowth. Again, I kept it very loose and suggestive, showing random clumps in the mid-distance and more obvious plants in the foreground.

4. Leave the broad stretch of blue up to the horizon as this is the basis of our swathe of bluebells.

1. Now to strengthen the values. Mix roughly equal parts burnt sienna and ultramarine to create a dark grey-black colour. Firstly, with the ¾in. flat, paint the trunks of the nearest trees.

2. Revisit some of your previous trees and paint into their bark to create solidity and shadow.

3. Use a small Round or Rigger brush with thinner paint to create the branches then take it down into the undergrowth, painting the depressions and shapes between plants.

4.  In the near foreground begin to suggest the shapes of individual leaves by flicking the brush upwards in random motions. Again, keep it loose and suggestive.

At this point add a little titanium white to the green mix to make it slightly opaque.

With a small Round brush, paint areas of lighter leaves within the canopy, breaking up the shapes of the foliage and tree trunks. Again, bring this colour down to highlight some of the undergrowth to give a dappled effect.

1. Finally, paint the bluebells themselves! Into a tiny amount of crimson add ultramarine until you make a shade of violet then mix some of this with white to create a lighter lilac colour.

2. Squint your eyes at the reference and note how the masses of tiny flowers form clumps that are more spaced out as they approach the foreground. Use the two shades in turn with a small Round brush to create the lights and darks of the bluebells. Use the lighter colour to highlight patches in the distance and the darker colour closer to the foreground.

Possible finishing touches

When you have finished the painting, stand back and assess your work. Think about the overall impression of the scene and the atmosphere it evokes. What could you do to enhance it further?

Should you wish to suggest the tiny flowers, you could thin the lighter shade down with a little water and splatter the nearest bluebells with a bristle brush.

You could perhaps add a few birds in flight, or a signpost leading you into the woods?

Adding figures walking down the path will give scale to the trees and add an element of narrative. After all, who wouldn’t want to enjoy a lovely walk through a bluebell wood!

Finished painting

Bluebells in Hitch Wood, acrylic on acylic paper, (30.5x40.6cm)

For more ways of painting bluebells

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About Mike Rollins

Mike is a professional artist, tutor and demonstrator based in Hertfordshire. Links to Mike’s artwork, news and social media sites can be found at www.linktr.ee/rollinsart

This demonstration is adapted from the June 2022 issue of Leisure Painter. Enjoy endless inspiration with access to past and present issues of both Leisure Painter and The Artist, plus exclusive video demos, tutorials and more, with our Studio Membership! Discover how you can join today.

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