The Road to the Back Field

As the saying goes, "What a long strange trip it's been.". Actually that's the title of a Grateful Dead album but it still applies to this painting. I started this painting nearly two years ago. I was challenging myself to work larger outdoors and to make it a little easier on myself I picked the field behind my home to try a 16" X 20" plein air painting. I struggled with it for 2 1/2 hours on site before calling it quits, it still wasn't finished and I wasn't too happy with how it was going anyway. During the next week I worked on it in the studio and only got more frustrated with it and so I dropped it onto the "reject" pile. A few months later I worked on it some more, and back it went into the pile. This painting would get pulled out of the pile and put back in several more times until I got the idea earlier this year to convert the scene into a rural farm landscape. However, the first attempt at that still didn't work and it went back into the pile yet again. About two weeks ago I pulled it out of the pile for the last time. I started covering most of the painting with palette knife work, pretty much covering up everything I'd already done but using it as a guide hoping in he mean time that new inspiration would strike. I stayed with the same idea for the rural scene but the idea to make a few adjustments came to me, seemingly small adjustments but they made all the difference in the world and finally I was able to finish the painting, after nearly two years since it's start.