Start with a non-uniform wash of cobalt blue, gradually diluting it to the bottom of the paper. Make sure the whole paper is covered and very wet. Add some yellow ochre to the centre part where you want it to remain light and allow it to blend in with the cobalt. Add a light mix of cobalt and cadmium red to the top left and right.

Add ultramarine to the top two corners, allowing it to run down the paper. Then go to the bottom two corners and drop in some raw umber and tilt the paper to allow the colour to move up the paper. Now drop a mix of ultramarine and Vandyke brown in the corners. Add more water to the paper and then move the board around to allow the colours to mingle. Drop in more colour including burnt sienna as and where you feel necessary and then tilt the paper again.

Once the wash has dried thoroughly, decide on your composition. Sketch in faintly where you want the trees to go, indicating the trunks. This remains flexible during the painting and often will change slightly as the painting progresses.

Start in the centre with the most distant trees. Here tone is at its least, using a mix of cobalt and yellow ochre. Allow the tops of the trees to fade to nothing.

Now add the two middle-distance trees using a mix of cobalt and raw umber. These are painted wet into wet with more colour added into one side of the trunks. Then add a further tree with the same colours but less tone as shown with the arrow. It is easier to do this once the distant and mid-tones have been established.

Because of the nature of the composition it's able to work and complete one side at a time. So continue adding trees to the left hand side.

As the trees come closer more colour and tone is used.

When you need to put a large branch across an existing tree you can take paint out using the bristle brush first. Smaller branches are added using stronger colours.

Make sure that colours are always stronger on the same side of each tree. Highlights can be added by lifting colour out using a tissue.

The trunks are all painted wet into wet. The darks are obtained with a mix of ultramarine and vandyke brown (or permanent sap green with a purple), the lights are a combination of cobalt, raw umber and burnt sienna. Allow the colours to mix on the paper and keep it wet. Once the trunks have been done add the branches, then go back to the trunks and make sure everything blends in by using further washes if necessary.

The process is now repeated on the right hand side of the painting. Again working from back to front tonally and amending the initial composition if necessary as the whole picture develops.

Stand back at regular intervals, looking at the overall painting, to make sure that you have kept a random positioning of your trees and to ensure you have an overall balance to your painting. It is sometimes necessary to add some middle or distant trees in gaps or to move the planned position of those in the foreground.

The Finished Painting

To complete the painting a small amount of detail is added to the foreground, indicating grasses at the base of the foremost trees and glazing the foreground with yellow ochre and then adding  a cobalt and raw umber mix in places whilst the glaze is still wet.