The process involved in moving from start to finish in this painting project was a little more compicated than it usually has been for me. Recently my painting teacher gave us a composition assignment which involved either working from a photo that represented a not-so-great composition, or working from more than one photo to try to put together a good composition. I chose the latter, and so i needed to make up various parts of the composition: rearrange everything from the focus of the piece to the season being shown. Below are two of the photos i used for reference. the third photo is of the painting . The top photo was taken last summer, in July, and the composition is not good, mainly because the roof of the building touches the hillside; and the sky is cut off. The second photo was taken this spring, before any of the trees had budded and before the grasses turned green. I wanted the painting to be a summer one; but didn’t want quite so much green In the painting; that is why i added flowers. The colors of the hillsides underwent several iterations because the values were too close to the green of the trees;; and i didn’t have much choice about the trees. I also ran into trouble trying to get enough variety in the grasses without making the whole thing too busy. In any event, a challenging experiment which was a good learning experience!