In September of 2015, I went to a reunion celebrating the 50th anniversary of a Quaker boys camp called Flying Cloud, where I had the good fortune to work in the 70s as a counselor. While there, I set up a camera in the forest that took a picture every 15 minutes. This is from the  middle of the night when the moon illuminated a few leaves.

I worked on this for a few months, and then had to wait a long while in between sessions. The photograph from the middle of the night was too dark, so I was able to add (in Photoshop) enough of an image from the middle of the day when the sun was covered briefly in clouds to use to add ambient light. But the image wasn’t quite what I wanted, so the painting started from there – which was hard enough – and then I had to mess around until it felt right. I sent a photograph of it to Lovett’s Gallery in Tulsa, and they wanted it, so I decided it was done. Another drawing table freed up!