This was one of the most enjoyable and satisfying paintings I’ve ever done. Having been to a fantastic exhibition of Canadian art in the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto a few months ago, I was inspired to try painting on more unusual surfaces. The ‘Group of Seven’, painting in Canada in the 1920s, often painted directly on to pieces of wood, using the colour of the material as part of the composition of their painting. The example below by Tom Thomson does exactly this.

I have therefore tried to emulate this style by using a piece of slate as material (from our roof!), and used the natural colour in the image for the stone walls of the Lake District.