Home Before the Monsters Come Out (oil on canvas, 2010)

This is the old Henderson barn, on the ITS trail where it crosses the Wiley Road. I've drawn and painted this subject several times over the years. I was out for a run one evening about 4 weeks ago and, having failed to anticipate how much shorter the days were getting, I found myself with three miles still to go before reaching home and darkness quickly approaching. (Since moving to northern Maine from suburban Massachusetts, I have developed a strong dislike for running in the dark - way too many wildlife encounters, including several skunks and a large bull moose!) As I approached this old barn, it was silhouetted by an amazing pink and orange sky. I never saw skies like these in Massachusetts. I've drawn the barn itself so many times that I could easily do it from memory. I did several unsuccessful color studies in pastel – I think the problem was that they had too many colors and the barn wasn't dark enough. Then, one evening last week, I was walking out to my studio from the house and looked out across the street and saw a similar pink and orange sky behind my neighbors field, with a row of trees in back. The trees were almost black and the field was barely discernable. I grabbed my pastels and a scrap of paper and did a quick little drawing, which became the impetus for the color scheme in this painting.