Thursday, I painted for about 7 hours. Not non-stop -please! The eyes and brain need a break! I found ways to be out of the direct sun, so I painted 3 different vantage points. The painting above was my afternoon painting, which happened in the woods next to the important water source here at Homestead. When the original homesteader, Daniel Freeman, chose this plot of land, supposedly he had scoped it out as a scout for the Union Army and recognized the varied habitat, with a good creek, a woods (for hunting and building a house), a freight road next to it (to get the crops to market/rail), and the nice, flat land.

Being here for nearly 2 weeks gives me the time to really lose myself in the landscape, and explore it visually, as well as physically. I sat down to do the watercolor above and thought, "I don't know.....well....maybe." And I was pleased with it as a study, in the end. Today's very overcast, so when the sky is brighter, I'll paint that curve in the path again

Meantime, I came across this little guy in the path: