Busy Week in Vermont

I was up in Vermont, really on vacation, but with the plan to paint at least one work -- the house I was staying in. While I was working on that painting, a man stopped by, asked if I'd paint the house he lives in. It was just up the hill, an 1800s bungalow that will be torn down in the next month by its owners.

There were so many interesting emotional aspects to this painting. In front of the house was a huge woodpile, clearly the result of many hours of hard work chopping wood. The house was surrounded by a spectacularly colorful garden with a rich array of perennials and annuals in such abundance that even hungry deer couldn't diminish its beauty (although you could see how they'd been feeding off the sunflowers!). And there was this old house, a survivor on its last days, showing its age. I took the photo from a little different angle than the spot where I'd painted, and you can see that I edited the view a bit to include more of the garden.

It was a wonderful experience, including the bouquet of flowers left for me on the front porch by the man who'd commissioned the painting.