The second painting is another woodscape. This has the working title "The way to the sea" and is of a wooded area just off the Wirral Way leading down to the Dee estuary. It is being done in the studio from drawings and a black and white photo to give me more idea of tones, without getting too hung up on colour. The thing that impressed me when I first saw this view was the low winter sun glowing through the trees giving a contre jour effect. I tried for most of the session to achieve this by using darks against lights and then in the final 5 minutes rubbing a rag over it in exasperation. Suddenly there it was!Now the difficulty will be to keep this quality in. will post progress on both of these paintings at regular intervals.