Sometimes I drive around for hours scoping “plein air” opportunity. Sometimes I see exactly what I want to paint. I want the composition to be a suggestion of the moment I first saw the chosen vista. Once I find that vista I get busy, the light and weather are always changing, so I work quickly. I use oil pastels. They are very easy to transport, they have a luscious, brilliant quality to them and I love how they make marks. I rarely finish a painting, so when I go back to the studio I paint from memory because I don’t use photos.. It’s at this point that I refine the picture, and try not to overwork it. In the winter I’ll select different oil pastel landscape paintings from the past fall, summer and spring and reconstruct them into 48”x24” acrylic paintings. My memories fuel my imagination which helps me push my color and mark making. It’s at this point in my process that I become very expressive.