A Summer storm was approaching. I was on our back-yard deck without even an easel. I had a blank canvas that was just waiting for such an ominous scene to be captured as it unfolded. I do mostly happy scences. I was waiting for something on the opposite spectrum of the way I generally view the world. Not all is happy, but even here I wanted to find something good about existense. I found it in the two love birds. Done in 1987 in Lafayette, Indiana. There were countless birds in the sky, instinct guiding them to a tree or some safe place. Two birds found our telephone wire and stayed there quite long enough for me to lay down a rough sketch, along with the clouds in the sky in oils. A very fast "sketch" with a few sprinkles just starting to fall, and sirens were blaring. I finished as the sky changed from blues to frightening green. All was done in Burnt Umber, black and whites--with red and yellow touches in the foreground birds. Rapidly layed down a glaze of Green Earth over the entire oil sketch to kill the harshness that sketches produce. What an experiment! First and only time I ever used the Maroger medium, but it dries so fast this painting was practically calling out for it. That medium allows for fast detail work almost like acrylics. And got inside as the lightning started to hit closer than it was already starting to sound in the north west. Probably my fastest outdoors oil painting.