Whilst the previous artists have stuck to muted colour palettes to depict light and shade, Roland Wakelin's The outcrop, in a particularly Impressionist style, is a series of different coloured brushstrokes placed next to one another which, together, give a depth of colour and texture.
The strokes of red that occur in the sun-saturated grass at the foreground of the painting are almost pastel-like in hue, sitting adjacent to spurts of yellow and baby blue. We recognise the shadow of the tree sitting on the left of the painting in the patches where the reds are deeper, contrasted more strongly against darker aquamarine blues, amongst only a few scattered strokes of yellow. The tree itself is painted in a blackened-blue colour, distinct from what we understand as its shadow that stretches from its base.
The painterly gestures that Wakelin has used give the grass a very grass-like quality, which, in turn, means that the shadows cast upon it, painted in the same gesture, are understood as sitting atop the grass, not a natural part of it, nor physical objects either.