I wanted to thank the guys on the Matte Painting forum for all their help and support over the last year. I collected images of trees and mountains. the rest was painted using a wacom tablet. The hardest part was matching colours and getting contrast and hues correct. The Baubles were designed as a brushstroke. The tinsel was created using stars with the colour selector. My favourite part was designing the snowman as he was the first i built this year without my hands getting cold. Finally the piece was feeling a little flat and as i added noise on a fill layer to creat snow it came alive. I am really happy with this piece and i realised that photorealism and beatifully rendered images are not everything. It is about the emotion with the piece and this loose style feels more emotive to me. This was done in photoshop in the middle of the night whilst suffering from a bout of insomnia. I hope everyone enjoys this.

Rich