Corner Fence (oil on canvas, 2010)

My wonderful neighbors, Fred and Inez, have a farm up on a hill where they raise sheep, along with some hens, cows and lots of hay. I have drawn and painted their barn from the bottom of the hill looking up. I have been wanting to get a look at the farm from the back so last Monday I went up there in the morning and they gave me (along with armloads of delicious squash from their garden and some fresh eggs!) permission to roam around their property with my paints and pastels. I headed way out back to do a view of the main group of attached barns from behind, and on the way I was struck by this solitary tree, which had a very strong presence all by itself surrounded by pastures and hay fields. It turns out that at 9:30 in the morning the view of the back of the barns meant that I'd be staring directly into the sun so I decided to focus on the tree instead. In spite of the intense heat (it was in the 90's!!) and spilling my jar of paint thinner all over my palette of colors, I was pretty pleased with this little painting. As I told Fred that morning, I could easily spend months up there and not run out of interesting things to paint. I spent the rest of the week doing pastel drawings of the view of the back of their house and the path leading to it from the back fields. I will try to post some of those soon.