The pic of this hill has inspired a number of my paintings. The first one I did was close to what the scene looked like, but as I was painting it, I had a number of ideas for other paintings. I imagined a fire across the horizon, a lightning strike at night, the wind sweeping across long dry grass or a line of trees beyond the horizon. Of course, these ideas were not be painted from life because the scenes did not exist but even if they did, it would be impossible to paint lightning from life as it cracks across the sky for only a split second and painting a bush fire close up would not happen. Having said that, the painting with the fire on the horizon, the wind pushing the clouds and grass, and the tops of trees beyond the horizon were all painted at the same spot I did the first en plain air picture. Although I was not painting what was in front of me, returning to the spot seems to keep ideas fresh in my mind. All the other paintings were done in the studio from my imagination, although it was a hill that inspired all of these works.
