The New Filly

June painted this from a photograph she took in Lost Maples, at least it was her starting point which is what photographs always are for her.  Once she gets into her painting it is like it takes on a life of its own.  She recalls the morning she took this photo with all of the fog and low clouds coming down over the hills.  It had so much mood.  She always felt she would paint it, and years later she still recalls the way she felt when she was there as she painted it.  That is one of the things that makes her art so meaningful to her.  It isn't just a painting she does to sell, it is her life.  She started it as a demo in a workshop as a pure landscape.  She had this image of her son and granddaughter, Craig & Maddie, that she wanted to use in a scene such as this and of his paint horse and foal.  She loved the colors with the bright yellow slickers forming a strong vertical in the painting with all of the diagonals and horizontals in the landscape.  She also loved the contrasting yellows with the blues.