Within the sketched outline the paint is laid on thinly, sometimes with an almost dry brush. The light brown gesso underpainting is allowed to show through, in this instance giving a warm brown tone to the whole foreground. Bruegel must have composed the Months largely on the panels themselves; only one preparatory drawing on paper survives, a study for one of the hunters in The Hunters in the Snow, the January panel. Having prepared the panel, Bruegel drew the outlines of the composition in paint with a thin brush and then added the thinly-scraped areas of colour within those outlines.