being there

As in the reference photo, the sky is blue, there is a tree on the left, Queen Anne's lace in the foreground and a wheat field in the distance.

When I painted this scene plein air, I interpreted literally but in the studio with only the reference photo to remind me, I found myself remembering the total experience of being there, not just the scene before me. The hot blue sky, the dry meadow foliage around me and crunching under my feet, the expansive beauty of this place (painter Amanda Houston's home). I like the fairly realistic tree as a place for the viewer to enter the painting but from there, the path is to the right into abstracted distant trees and then back to flower heads in the meadow. For now, "Wheat Field and Meadow" is safe from the garden hose.