This small and simple picture was inspired by a pine tree situated very close to my studio. I walk past this area all the time, coming and going many hours of the day. At a certain moment in the afternoon, the light falls on this otherwise nondescript tree, and it comes alive.
Summer is usually a challenging time to paint outdoors. The light is harsher and more direct, it is usually very hot, and unfriendly insects are abundant. The biggest difficulty is the unmitigated greenness of everything in nature. My aim was to create sufficient variations of color, so that my picture wouldn't bombard the viewer with green.