Stage 1: This will be an oil painting. Having stained the board with a light wash of burnt sienna I have roughly drawn in the basic composition in thin paint diluted with turps. This dries very quickly so I can then start painting over the top the next day. I've already started putting in the dark spaces of clear water between the criss-cross pattern of floating reed stems at the bottom of the picture. This helps both to establish the darkest tones of the painting and to roughly map out the patterns of dead reeds.