Mystical mountain lake

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

■ How to paint with acrylics

■ Using a variety of different paint effects

■ Working with a limited palette

Walking in the mountains can be the closest thing to time travel. In the high fells, you can wander through places that have not changed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. I’ve visited the head of the Nant Ffrancon valley in Snowdonia many times since my first geography field trip there as a schoolboy. Cwm Idwal, the great bowl of rock with its mysterious, still tarn, remains exactly as I remember it – an unchanging link to my past and a humbling presence, as I know it will continue to look the same long after I have gone.

Even the weather always seems to be the same when I visit; dismal, moody, low hanging clouds and the inevitable rain. It can be like this at any time of year, but particularly at the end of winter. The cwm takes on a monochrome