A Certain Old Maple

 What a beautiful day to get to go out and paint. No mittens needed!

At the high points of the fields I could walk across icy mud and stubble, it smelled of spring, but as I headed downhill the snow was still deep enough in places to walk right over one of the fences, and fall through up past my knees when I least expected it. I discovered that one of my boots has a leak.

 I chose to paint this beautiful, tumbling down, old maple tree. My siblings and cousins and I used to spend a lot of time in and around this tree, climbing, reading, eating candy, making up stupid songs, roasting hotdogs over a fire underneath, dodging cow pies as we jumped out of it. Good times.

Deep snow and a dry place to sit.

The pups think painting is terribly boring.

Finished. 10x8" oil on linen.

^_^

Currently drying on my easel:

November's Last Hurrah, 16 x 20" oil on mounted linen

Walking toward home one day last fall, as the sun set, I looked across the road and knew I wanted to try to make a painting based on that moment.
The fields and pasture stretched into the distance in the fading light, with the last thin crop of hay cut and lying in narrow rows, and the trees already bare of their autumn foliage.