I was interested to develop one of the sketches that I did on my sketchbook walk because the tonal values of the areas in the picture are the opposite to those you would expect if using atmospheric perspective to convey relative distances; the foreground was bright sunshine on grass and the background was deep shadows under dense trees. Reflections on the surface of the pond in the middle ground provided interesting interplay between the tonal values of background and foreground.

I tried to work quickly in monochrome in order to accentuate these ideas but the result is messy and unsuccessful in achieving my intent. I will probably rework this idea at a later date in different media, and in situ. There was not enough detail in my initial sketch to adequately inform this piece, and I didn’t take a photograph at the time either.