Silence

Acrylic painting on deep sided gallery wrapped canvas.
 
60 x 42 x 3.75 cm
Plain grey painted sides, ready to hang unframed
 
In the middle of Crannoch Woods, the ground slopes steeply upwards until you reach a clearing, where a small loch nestles amongst a circle of trees. In winter it's mysterious, silent. The ice forms intricate patterns on the still surface, covered in the centre by a pristine layer of snow and broken at the edges by stiff uprights of reeds and bullrushes. Birches lean across the frozen water as though reaching to their friends on the far banks, their reddish gold stems adding an unexpected warmth to the icy scene. The only sound is the sudden sharp call of a pheasant taking off from somewhere amid the bracken, shocking in the silence.