Step 1: This picture just symbolizes the time, sometimes for several days, where I have to descend inside myself to find the picture. It takes some time for it to really gel and be ready to be ‘born’.

Step 2: I discovered that this particular picture was going to be a little difficult, because of the elements that needed to be in the picture and also because of the poses of the children and their angle to the viewer. So, what fun! I made little plastiscine children that I could pose and move around in a little model of the children’s backyard. Above (big) is the picture I wanted to use, but I remembered that the seeds the children planted need to be in the picture, now up and grown, and the garden is not in view in that scene. So I have to have a view that stretches across. The fact of the topography of the site – the large hillside – unfortunately is not part of my model or thinking!

Step 3: I worked on my sketch (of which you see just a little), but had trouble with the porch, so Richard is designing it for me! Good to have a builder around!

Step 4: Transferring  the sketch to the good paint paper is whole other process, which is a day’s work. But ALAS! when that was done and ready for paint, I discovered that I really did not think it would be a good, artistic picture. You don’t see that (above in the sketch) but in the finished drawing  all the essential elements  are kind of sprayed around the edges, and the main part of the picture itself is GRASS! Aaarrrgh!

I ponder this. Of course, I do not want to start again. But something in me says, ‘When you start to paint there can be no doubt!’ So I leave everything, and go out to do emergency care on my apple tree that has suffered terribly under 5 ft. of snow, then chickens, floor washing, etc. And after all that, yes, I know I must start again!! Drat!!

So now, Step 3 b: Here is probably a better scene to sketch! Garden in foreground and the hills of grass rising up as background, and the children more in the middle. My model does not account for the hills, which actually what threw me off. Well,  I had not wanted to paint the house either (shown as a box above). Ah, but now I will do it, and gladly!! TOMORROW!