I’ll be returning to Sonoma in a few days, and suddenly am feeling homesick for my old home there on the side on Sonoma Mountain. I had a lovely vegetable and flower garden on the side of the mountain It was a wonderful, peaceful part of the ranch. There was an incredible old oak tree there, all twisted and gnarly. After working in the garden, I enjoyed relaxing in the wooden chair in the shade of the oak tree and looking over the countryside. I grew poppies and chard and lettuce at the time this was painted. The air was hot, dry and fresh and the sky so blue. All I could hear was the sound of the insects and animals that owned the mountain that I lived on. This painting is painted mostly from my memories of how my garden looked in late summer when I lived there over 3 years ago. The grass was parched and straw colored from the long dry summer. I wonder if it still looks like this? The paint colors I used to make this painting are portrait pink, cadmium red medium, alizarine crimson, cadmium orange, violet oxide, cobalt teal, ultramarine blue, cobalt, green gold, Jenkins green, yellow ochre, cad yellow dark, cadmium yellow light, Indian yellow, and titanium white. The ultramarine and violet oxide make a beautiful shadey earth color in the garden beds. I painted in acrylic first, then got out the oils and proceeded to get thicker and brighter. Kathleen Elsey