The Holy Grail, so near, so far.

80 +  F  partly cloudy, before the rain.

Here it is the Holy Grail of scenery.  The recent rains have filled all the small streams at a time of the year that they'd be much dryer.  Earlier in the season they'd be just as full, but the foliage would be way younger, and that would be different. So yeah, you can't get any lusher than this!(no jokes about aunt flora, please).  11:00 A.M.

This is just a few minutes into it.  I've been wanting to do another 16 x 20, but I've been waiting for the right scene. I thought I was going to go to Brownell Corners Rd. where I had a place for a repeat, but the sun wasn't right ( I needed afternoon at that spot) so I kept driving and found this spot. Anyway,  I wasn't really thinking about this composition, and well I just mixed up my dark purple, and went ahead.  I thought keeping the bank on the middle left away from the edge was important, as well as the general trajectory of the winding stream....

I had visitors but they didn't want to sit still for me.

This was a few more minutes into it.  A lot of my readers have been responding to the progress shots, so I thought I'd shoot. Here is a lot of green and I didn't get it as close as I would have liked, but until you establish enough of the colors you really can't see them, it's a bit of a catch 22, without an a-bomb.

This is probably close to 2 hours into it, and I've got most of the ground covered, and I can start to see where the color will go, (not exactly where I tell it, but like children, they respond to positive suggestion better than any alternative).

You can see how much the sky changed, maybe the green isn't as far off as I originally thought.

This is where it ended up at about 1:00 after about 3 hours,  I knew I needed to look and think about it, and what it needs to get it the way I want it, but I think it has potential. I will go back to this site, and I hope I can do it soon. The clouds changed a lot, but I think they just need a bit of softening, the water needs some decent darks, and maybe a few of the brightest highlights, the greens need some systemic alteration,