Hume Lake in the middle of the day on a holiday weekend. Sitting on a picnic. blanket, easel and paint supplies strewn about. My four-year-old niece beside me asking all the questions, suggesting her favorite colors, and soaking up my abover-her-age answers the same way my neck is soaking up the sun. Just a few hours earlier the sky dumped loads of rain on us. There's a moodiness to the sky that lingersm ,but hjoy in the subnshine that's arrived. 
A reminder that joy and grief can be friends. That the sun can still shine bright after the rain. And that there is beauty in it all. 
 
8x10 oil on canvas panel in a vintage frame.