I had been painting all day that hot August afternoon--I was working on the Sierra Club Guide to Painting in Nature, and I was about to despair of getting anything worth keeping. I was hot, I was tired, I was hungry...but as I turned my car around to leave I noticed this beautiful farm field, rich and green, with the loess bluffs blue with humidity in the background. I had to paint it...and not only is it the best thing I did THAT day, it's one of my favorite plein air pieces, fresh and simple, in my hurry, but it needed nothing more.