Painting the Birch Woods of the White Peak

There's a moment, most evenings in late spring, when the light in a Derbyshire birch wood turns almost turquoise. The trunks catch the last sun and glow silver-white against it, and if you're lucky, the moon is already up before the sky has properly darkened. That's the moment I was chasing when I painted Among the Birches.

Where the painting began

I know this particular wood well — it's one of the places I come back to again and again on my walks through the White Peak. In early summer the ground beneath the birches fills with wildflowers, and the whole understorey seems to hum with colour: flecks of white, yellow and lilac scattered through long grass. Painting it is as much about capturing that feeling of being in the wood as it is about getting the trees right.

I work mostly in watercolour, and lately I've been layering it with drips, splashes and looser mark-making to try to get at the movement of light through leaves — the way it never sits still. Among the Birches went through a lot of stages before it found its quiet, luminous version of early evening: the wood settling down for the night, still glowing, just a little enchanted.

Why birch woods, again and again

People sometimes ask why I keep returning to the same handful of places — this wood, the moorland rivers, the gritstone edges. I think it's because a landscape only starts giving you something real once you've watched it change through a few seasons. The birches in winter, bare and silver, are a completely different subject to the birches in June, thick with meadow flowers at their feet. Painting the same wood repeatedly isn't repetition to me — it's more like getting to know someone properly.

From painting to print

Among the Birches is now available as a Giclée fine art print, reproduced on archival velvet-textured paper so the texture of the bark and the scatter of wildflowers come through clearly. Each one is made to order, titled and signed.

If woodland light is your thing, you might also like my other landscape prints from around the Peak District — including a few more birch wood studies I'm currently working on.

Sheila Gill is a watercolour and mixed-media artist based in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, known for her paintings of the White Peak landscape and British wildlife. Browse the full original art collection or sign up below for first look at new work.